


Book Two:  Broken Stairway

by ladyeternal



Series: Shape the Invisible [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Astral Projection, Bobby Singer is Grumpy Bear, East of the Sun and West of the Moon Elements, Fractured Fairy Tale, M/M, Mating Marks, Pining Castiel, Pre-Series, Sam Winchester Has Powers, Zachariah is a dick in any universe, heaven's prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 11:31:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13569705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyeternal/pseuds/ladyeternal
Summary: In the wake of losing his mysterious lover, Sam has been left with more questions than ever.  Even if he can forgive Dean for provoking the doubts that cost him the love of his life, finding the answers he needs may lead the brothers to a path down which even angels fear to tread.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So first of all, I'm so sorry that I didn't get this posted on Saturday as promised. I can only plead that life has been extremely busy over the last couple days, and promise that this story will be updated weekly until complete.
> 
> As with Book One, please see the series page for complete notes, acknowledgments, warnings and fanmix.
> 
> Feedback is adored, so if you like the fic, please comment! And the more details the better; I love knowing what people like about my work.

~ooooOOOoooo~

_April 2005_

Senior year passed in a blur, a stream of same days and lonely nights. Unable to break the habits that living with Gabe for eighteen months had ingrained, Sam found himself spending those nights hidden in darkness, not even having the heart to open to curtains and let in the moonlight that Gabe had loved so much.

Jess had eventually moved back into her dorm and resumed her own class schedule, but she spent every free weekend she had in the penthouse, heart-shaped face soft and concerned when she thought he wasn’t looking. Even after nearly a year, losing Gabriel still felt like an open wound on Sam’s soul. He refused to engage in anything social unless he absolutely had to, buried himself in his studies, devoted every ounce of heartbroken affection he could manage to Abraxas.

He still felt guilty, too, over having all but abandoned Brax in his grief over having given in to his doubts. There was an absolution that Sam hadn’t wanted at first in caring for their pet, but now he soaked it in like a plant absorbed sunlight, latching onto Abraxas’ empathy and steadfast love like a lifeline when depression threatened to drag him under.

A month before finals, Jess crept into his study, practically on tiptoe. “Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t be mad, okay? I couldn’t turn him away.”

Brow furrowing, Sam looked up from the reference on torts that he’d been staring at for the last hour, a question as to what she was talking about hovering on his lips and then dying there. Dean stood in the doorway, jade eyes guarded, beautiful face still as stone. Everything in his posture told Sam that Dean was expecting anger, violence, to be bodily hurled from the penthouse amid epithets and orders to never darken Sam’s doorstep again.

Six months ago, Sam might still have had enough anger left to manage it. By now, it had all drained away as his own culpability had taken root, sapping deflection and letting his guilt and depression flourish. “You look tired.”

“Been driving a while.” Dean’s tone was carefully neutral, waiting for the explosion of Sam’s temper that he’d been certain would come. “Last job was in Georgia.”

“You should probably eat, too, then.” Sam stood, watching Dean tense almost imperceptibly. He hated the distance between them, wanted to erase it but didn’t know how. “Pizza place around the corner does a decent meat-lover’s.”

“I could eat.” There was a tiny relaxation in his muscles, the faintest uncoiling of his limbs as Dean took the offer of hospitality for the olive branch it was. But it was Dean, and Dean couldn’t let anything alone for long. He reached out as Sam passed him through the doorway, taking Sam’s elbow in a light grip. “Sam?”

Sam stilled, the sound of his name in that big-brother, protectively-concerned tone burrowing deep beneath his defenses. It was almost impossible to keep from falling into that grip, to let Dean catch him and carry him the way he had when their parents had passed away. But now wasn’t the time. “I’m okay,” he murmured, turning his face just enough to see Dean in his peripheral vision but not enough to look Dean in the eye. “We should order, man. It’s really good pizza.”

It was good enough to go on. Dean nodded and released Sam’s arm. “Okay.”

* * *

In less than a week, Dean had essentially moved in with his brother. It had taken nearly a year of barely speaking to each other, of separate holidays and spending his birthday alone in a motel and feeling like he was missing a limb before Dean had been willing to concede that Sam wasn’t going to blink first this time. His brother had lost weight, and there was a haunted, melancholy cast to his face that had never been there before, but he was still Sam, and Dean was still his big brother, and it was a matter of days before they’d settled into an all-too-familiar routine.

When their mother had died, killed hunting what she’d thought was a werewolf and turned out to be a rugaru, John had been inconsolable. Sam himself had been a heartbroken teenager, trying to cope with the loss and the lies at the tender age of sixteen. It was Dean that had killed the thing that killed their mother; Dean that had organized her memorial service and prepared her body so that they could give her the hunter’s funeral her will had specified. And while John had steadily vanished into alcohol and post-traumatic despair, it had been Dean that shouldered the mantle of head of the house, making sure Sam wanted for nothing and running their father’s auto-repair business and working with the family lawyer to close out Mary’s home-based CPA practice.

Only Sam had been privy to the quiet, aching grief that had torn Dean up in the dark hours of the night. He hadn’t allowed anyone else see it; taking up their mother’s legacy had been much more important.

Now, in the face of Sam’s obvious heartbreak, Dean shifted from hunter to homebody, running errands and taking Abraxas for walks and generally handling the day-to-day tasks around the apartment so that Sam could focus on school. It was so familiar to them both that it required almost no communication.

But they didn’t talk about anything else, either, which made life in the penthouse almost eerily silent. For the first time in their lives, they were sleeping apart while living in the same place with no apparent interest in altering that arrangement: Dean in the guest room and Sam in the great bed he’d shared with Gabriel. The only concession to their age-old need for closeness was that neither slept with the door to their room closed.

For all that Dean had given ground first, coming hat in hand to his brother for forgiveness, it was Sam who finally broke the silence.

* * *

_May 2005_

The night after his last final, when there was nothing left to do but wait for his grades to come in and his cap and gown to be delivered, Sam couldn’t sleep. His mind had nothing left to really focus on: no more classes or tests to prepare for, no papers to write, no applications to complete. He’d been accepted into Stanford Law almost by default, and although he was being offered several internships for the summer intersession, he had yet to accept any of them.

Somewhere, deep down, he felt as though he stood on the edge of a knife. One false step to either direction and he would be rent in two. Whenever he drifted off, his mind conjured images of Gabriel: memories of laughter and lovemaking that tore at the remnants of his shattered heart. They clung to him even when he woke, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, sure that even in the pitch black he could see the scratches caused by the explosion of the light fixture when Gabriel had vanished from his life.

Finally, Sam slipped free of the tangled sheets and padded across the hall. Abraxas followed him with a questioning whine, to which Sam murmured reassurance as he reached down to scratch at the dog’s ears.

Dean came awake in a heartbeat when the creak of a floorboard betrayed Sam’s approach. Sam saw the faintest glint off the edge of his brother’s knife, mate to the one he kept under his own pillow, before Dean recognized Sam’s presence and put it away.

There were no words exchanged as Dean rolled over and made room, letting Sam climb beneath the blankets while Abraxas curled up on the floor beside the bed. They lay there, Sam’s sleep shirt brushing Dean’s bare back, listening to the sound of each other’s breathing and knowing that neither one would be able to sleep until they’d said what needed to be said.

“I miss him.” Sam’s voice was soft in the darkness, almost ashamed even in the safety of shadows.

“I know, Sammy.” Dean shifted, rolling to face his brother. They’d slept in the same bed for so long as children that it had often been impossible to sleep when they were apart. Even when they’d been given separate bedrooms as teenagers, it had been common for them to be found either curled up in Sam’s bed like puppies in a basket or each tucked into one of the bunk beds that Dean hadn’t let their parents change out for years. “It’ll get better, man. You just gotta give it time.”

Sam had turned to face Dean as well, his eyes shining wet in the dark. “I don’t want to. Dean, I know what I believe… I know what I saw… what if he wasn’t lying? What if he really was Gabriel and I…”

His younger brother’s face twisted in guilt and grief, and Dean’s heart lurched in sympathy. Whatever the creature had been, Sam had loved him. Dean had pushed Sam to act on his doubts, and now doubt was all his brother was left with. Dean owed him better. Had promised him better. Worst of it was that, if Dean was truly honest, there had been just a little jealousy behind his urgings: fear of losing his Sammy to some creature’s conspiracy was paramount, yes; but fear of losing the rarity of their closeness, of their special bond being somehow sacrificed as Sam began to prioritize a lover over Dean…

Yes, Dean had been afraid, and he’d reacted by going on the offensive, and this was the result: a broken-hearted little brother who didn’t know any more about his lover now than he had the night they’d met. A little brother full of questions that, once again, Dean couldn’t even begin to answer.

“We’ll find out,” he found himself promising. “We’ll talk to Bobby, Ellen and Bill, Pastor Jim, Ash… anybody out there in the life that we can trust. If there’s a way to be sure, we’ll find it, Sammy.” He slid a hand up, brushing the floppy, shampoo-commercial hair from his brother’s face and offering a reassuring smile. “I promise.”

Reassured, Sam leaned into the touch as Dean’s fingers trailed down through his hair. Dean shifted towards his brother and Sam inched closer in response, tight breath leaving him in a sigh as Dean’s fingers carded softly through his hair.

“Hey, Jude,” Dean crooned softly, watching as Sam’s eyes drifted shut. “Don’t make it bad…”

By the second chorus, Abraxas had jumped up onto the end of the bed, curling up at his sleeping master’s feet. Dean let his voice trail off at the bridge, his own jade eyes closing as a small piece of his own guilt slipped away.

* * *

_White._

_Everything around him was silvery-white, gleaming with a light that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. His steps fell silently despite the feel of cool marble beneath his bare feet as something drew him along an empty hallway, his fingers trailing along the wall beside him as if to mark his trail in this alien place. What it was that compelled him, he couldn’t say; and yet Sam had no sense of being lost, didn’t need to guess what path to take. As if following a string in a labyrinth, Sam followed the winding white hall, uncertain what he would find at the end but knowing he needed to find it._

_It felt like days. It felt like minutes. Slowly, music crept into his hearing: choral, joyful, serene. Adulation that was at once wordlessly simple and endlessly complex. Pachelbel’s Canon in cathedrals of light, permeating everything, threatening to overtake his focus and carry him into insensate eternity. But as he drew near the end of the hall, a dissonance began to weave through: a strung note of pain, too high and tight to blend into the fabric of the boundless adoration that surrounded them. Instinct to comfort whatever was in pain drove Sam towards it, his steps faster but still silent even as he rounded the corner to close on the source…_

_Shock had him stumbling, scrambling back around the corner to hide before he was seen. Another instinct kicked in: this one to remain unnoticed in the face of a threat that he didn’t yet have the measure of. Because standing in the hall that the corner opened into was a man Sam had never seen before. Strangely ageless, his face was twisted by an arrogant sneer as he stared into what looked like a cell, a heavily-barred door separating him from the person inside. Wings of shimmering peacock teal were folded against his back, a match to the sigils embroidered just above the hems of the deep brown tunic he wore, and his arms were crossed over his chest in a clear attempt to appear indifferent, even if the way he stood made it clear to Sam that the man wasn’t nearly as nonchalant as he wanted to appear._

_And the person inside the cell, each wrist bound by a silvery manacle that was chained to the floor, was Gabe._

_“It’s your own fault, you know”, the other angel was saying, his voice dripping disdain even as his wings flicked nervously._

_“Shut up, Zach.” The voice that muttered from within the cell was muted in a way that made tears well in Sam’s eyes, despite the liquid notes that seemed to infuse every syllable._

_“Of all the Host, you know better than anyone the cost of becoming intimate with a human,” the other angel pressed on, ignoring the warning. “You, who judged the Grigori for their filthy liaisons! What were you thinking? And with the Morningstar’s Vessel, no less!”_

_Curiosity flickered within the ripple of shock, stifling any sound that might threaten to escape and flattening Sam’s body against the wall. *They’re talking about me… but the Morningstar is another name for Lucifer… and what the Hell does he mean by ‘vessel’?*_

_“At least it wasn’t with a female, so there was no danger of **that** complication.” Zach’s arms uncrossed and he took a step closer to the cell door, though the tips of his wings still trembled with agitation. “But considering who he is, I cannot **believe** you didn’t see it coming. It’s pathetic, honestly; disheartening to the lower orders. How can Michael keep them in hand if even the Guardian of the Western Watchtower cannot control his base urges?”_

_Something like a growl came from Gabe’s throat, his fists closing and the motion making the chains clink faintly. “If you don’t shut your damned mouth, Zachariel, I swear-“_

_Almost as if Gabe hadn’t spoken, Zach took another step towards the cell, his words coming more boldly with every syllable. “But honestly, you should’ve known he would betray you, in the end. After all, with Azazel’s blood running through his veins, it was only a matter of time-“_

_Sam barely had time to react to the newest clue dropped from Zachariel’s mouth before something like an explosion seemed to shake the entire structure around them to its foundations. A flare of light lashed out from within the cell, driving Zachariel back with a flinch and a cry, and when it cleared, Sam could see that Gabriel had come to his feet, his arms stretched out behind him and his chains taut between his wrists and their anchors in the floor. His face was a mask of rage, teeth bared and wings flaring as aggressively as they could._

_“You say one more word about him,” Gabriel snarled, “and Lucifer and his Fallen pets will be the least of your worries, **brother**.”_

_A moment passed, tense and silent. And then something flashed in Zachariel’s eyes, and he uttered a single word in a language Sam didn’t understand._

_All at once, Gabriel was crying out in agony, stumbling to the ground and shaking under the force of it. Zachariel straightened as he watched, approaching the cell and nearly towering over Gabe’s hunched form. “You’re no longer in a position to make threats, Gabriel… against me or anyone else. The First gave me charge over your imprisonment, and I will do what he never could: bring a rebellious seraphim to heel… one way or another.”_

_“Get fucked,” ground out from beneath the curtain of Gabriel’s sunset hair, as if through teeth clenched against pain that seared to the bone._

_Another word snapped past Zachariel’s lips and the aborted scream that strangled itself in Gabriel’s throat nearly had Sam charging from his hiding place. He’d almost taken a step before Dean’s voice sounded in his head in warning:_ ‘If he can do that to a Goddamned archangel, whaddyou think he could do to you?’

_“Zachariel.” Another voice, coming from the opposite side of the cell block. Sam’s eyes caught sight of midnight wings and bright blue eyes and nearly gasped aloud. “I’ve been sent to find you; Uriel seeks your counsel.” One eyebrow lifted, but the expression that settled across Zachariel’s face was smugly self-satisfied and he turned to leave without another word. As soon as he was gone, the new angel was kneeling before the barred door of the cell, murmuring softly to the wounded angel inside. Sam watched with his heart in his throat as the tension in Gabriel’s body and wings eased, and he was able to look up at his new companion with a haggard but pain-free expression. “Are you all right?”_

_“I’ve had better days,” Gabe answered honestly. “Lots of ‘em. Thanks for the assist, though; he’s an irritatingly pompous little shit.”_

_“An irritatingly pompous shit that has been given the means to keep you confined and subdued,” the new angel reminded him, a note of remonstrance in his voice._

_Gabe winced faintly at that. “Yeah… big bro’s pretty pissed at me, I think.” Slowly, Gabriel shifted until he was sitting up on his knees, straightening the rucked-up hemline of his midnight-sapphire tunic and doing an internal check for any lingering injuries. Sam knew that expression almost too well; he’d seen Dean do a hundred times when they were children. “You shouldn’t be here too long; Mikey’s partial to you on account of who you’re protecting, but there ain’t enough brownie points in the world to keep you off his shit list if he gets the idea that you’re on my side.” A pause, and then: “Have you seen him?”_

_“I don’t share Zachariel’s sentiments, but I won’t encourage your continued attachment to the boy.” Those blue eyes were steady, unflinching even in the face of Gabriel’s defeated slump. “You gambled dangerously, Gabriel, and you lost. You need to let it go. The longer you hold onto the hope, the longer it will be before Michael will ever begin to show leniency.”_

_“Could you ever forget?” Gabriel challenged, despite the crease of heartbreak on his face. “If you had the chance to touch **him** to do more than save his life, could you ever just walk away?”_

_The other angel didn’t answer, looking away from Gabriel with something like pain shuttered across his pale features. His eyes slowly opened, then widened in genuine surprise, the dark feathers of his brows raising in alarm._

_It took Sam a moment to realize that the angel was staring at him. That he’d involuntarily stepped clear of his hiding place, and that the other angel had seen him. Could see him._

_This wasn’t just a dream._

_All Sam could see was Gabriel: his head snapping up and around, surging to his feet and taking an unwitting step forward, golden eyes round with shock and blind from emotions Sam wasn’t sure he could name. “Sam…” It was a breath. A prayer. A whisper of agonized, disbelieving hope. And then the moment broke, and Sam could see the panic begin to take hold. “You’re not supposed to be here.”_

_“Gabe-”_

_The seraph that wasn’t chained and bound was already moving, closing on Sam with a speed that Sam couldn’t have run from even if his feet hadn’t felt glued to the floor. “You have to go back,” he ordered._

_Sam saw the hand lifting, reaching. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Gabriel any more than Gabriel could look away from him, not if this was the last time they would ever see each other. “I’m sorry.”_

_A brush of fingers at his temple, and then Sam was falling, tumbling head over heels through a waterfall of light… freefall through reality itself, the soundless shout of being pushed back towards his own plane drowning out Gabriel’s reply… faster and faster, dragged into gravity’s grip and back towards his body and he couldn’t stop couldn’t slow down even as the lights vanished into black…_

* * *

Abraxas was crying as Sam finally landed, his body flailing as it dropped from the bed in an uncoordinated heap. Dimly, Sam heard Dean shouting his name and the pound of his brother’s feet hitting the floor, felt Abraxas rush to his side and lick wildly at his face as Dean’s hands found him and turned him over, checking him for injuries while asking frantically if he was all right.

Everything felt thick… strange… as if Sam was coming back up from being underwater. It had sometimes been like this after a vision had come to him when he was younger, but it had never been this bad.

He saw Dean recognize it, watched the way those viridian eyes widened in realization, and then he was hauling Sam around until they were sitting back to chest, with Sam tucked into the vee of Dean’s legs and Dean’s back rested against the bedside cabinet. Dean’s arms wrapped around Sam’s chest in a snug, protective grip, his fingers stroking against Sam’s ribs through his shirt while Sam focused on his brother’s heartbeat.

Sam had never been sure when Dean had talked things over with Missouri about his visions; about how disconnected he felt in the aftermath and how they would sometimes follow him into the waking world. But it hadn’t been long after their mother had revealed all that Dean had started wrapping Sam into this very position whenever a vision hit him: grounding Sam with touch and safety and the steady drum of a human heart next to his own.

The visions had faded to infrequency, especially after their father’s death, and their lives had pulled them in different directions. It had been so long that Sam had almost forgotten how safe it really was in the cradle of his brother’s body, and he let himself float in the sensation now as his body and mind resettled themselves, one hand finding the still-whining Abraxas and stroking his fur to soothe him.

Dean had always been able to tell when it was finally over, though Sam had never known if it was just instinct or by some sign Missouri had told him to watch for. “What was it this time?” he asked gently.

Sam shook his head, not wanting to talk about it yet. It was still too close, his mind’s eye still haunted by the broken expression in Gabe’s golden eyes when their gazes had locked. Gabe… _Gabriel_ hadn’t known he was there when he’d been talking to the other angel. None of them had. But Sam hadn’t understood half as much of what they’d been saying as he wanted to, and none of what he had understood made him feel any better.

Nodding, Dean let him demur. Sam always told him everything about his visions, but sometimes they were too much to articulate in the immediate aftermath. He let Sam rest against him for a few more minutes, until Sam had very nearly fallen asleep against his brother’s chest. “I need to get you a glass of water or something.”

“There’s bottled water in the fridge,” Sam managed, reluctantly pulling away from Dean’s body and turning into a crouch so that he could get up… and then he stilled, frozen in shock.

Glaring up at him from his brother’s thigh was a large, angry pink, hypertrophic scar in the shape of a man’s hand. A nearly-exact match to the one that Sam had worn on his waist for the last two and a half years.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the series page for complete notes, warnings, acknowledgments & fanmix.

~ooooOOOoooo~

“I know my knees are sexy, Sammy,” Dean quipped, though there was a strained note to his voice, “but there’s a limit to the whole ‘I’ll do anything for you’ thing.”

Still reeling, Sam rolled away from his brother towards the end of the bed, his eyes huge as he stared at the mark. It was in an impossible place; not even the one Gabe had left him with was so obviously intimate. But Dean wouldn’t have been so livid over Sam sleeping with a supernatural creature if he’d done the same… would he?

“Sam?” Dean’s voice was concerned, making Sam’s head snap up until their eyes met. Dean hadn’t moved, the handprint still clearly visible, and he was watching Sam with a guarded expression.

“Where’d you get it?” Sam croaked, his throat closing on too many emotions to name. When Dean’s brow knitted in confusion, Sam nodded towards his leg. “The mark… where’d it come from?”

An expression settled over Dean’s face that Sam had never seen on his brother before, and then Dean was shifting into a crouch and reaching out, helping Sam up to his feet and pressing him to sit on the edge of the bed. Letting out a long breath as he straightened, Dean ran an unsteady hand through his hair as he attempted to gather his thoughts. “It’s not important, Sammy,” he said finally. “It’s just a scar that looks like a hand; like how people can see faces in groups of shapes, sometimes. That’s all.”

Taking a deep breath, Sam pulled off his tee shirt and stood up. “No, it’s not.” And then he turned around, letting Dean see the portion of the one Gabriel had left on him where it rose above the band of his boxers.

Dean’s hands were on him in a second, fingers splaying over the handprint that Gabriel had somehow burned into Sam’s skin. Only Sam would’ve ever caught the tiny hitches in Dean’s breath as he explored the shape of it, traced the edges just beyond the elastic band that clung to Sam’s hips. Only someone that had known Dean his entire life would’ve understood that they meant his brother was shaken to the very core by it, and everything its existence implied.

When Dean finally stepped back and Sam could turn around without tripping over him, Dean’s expression was nakedly stunned. His eyes were still fixed on Sam’s waist for a moment even as the handprint disappeared from sight, and then they finally lifted to meet Sam’s gaze. “ _He_ leave that mark on you?”

Sam nodded, and it seemed to unlock Dean’s muscles. He began pacing; Sam could see his mind racing behind shocked green eyes. “It’s how I finally knew he wasn’t human. It happened the second-to-last night before Christmas break, while we were-”

“I get the picture,” Dean snapped, waving Sam off without looking at him. The hand he’d just shaken in Sam’s direction reached up and raked through his hair again. “Jesus fuck, Sammy…”

“How’d you get yours?” Sam asked again.

“That’s not important right now.”

Sam felt his mouth drop open as he stared at his brother. He could see the way Dean’s mind was tumbling over itself, rapidly trying to run the fact of Sam’s handprint and its origin into the equation, but Sam already knew it wouldn’t fit. The only way it would fit was to change the equation, and they needed more data for that. “Not important? Dean, are you kidding? It’s everything. How you got it could be the proof we need.”

“Leave it alone, wouldja, Sam?” Dean’s voice was agitated now, his pacing strides slowing, aimless and erratic… almost like he was feeling cornered…

“No, Dean; I can’t,” Sam pressed. “I need to know; you promised we’d figure things out.” His eyes tracked Dean in the shadows of the room, seeing the signs that Dean was somehow in actual distress from the revelation and not understanding why. “Was it someone you slept with? Because I don’t care about your one-night stands, Dean; you know that-”

“I don’t know how I got it, all right?!” Dean finally exploded. He came to a dead stop as he rounded on his brother, jade eyes snapping with fury and confusion.

Sam didn’t respond, instead sinking down to sit on the edge of the bed and watching Dean as his brother’s temper diffused as quickly as it had snapped. He knew Dean better than anyone else living or dead, and he knew when to confront Dean’s emotions and when to wait them out. Sure enough, Dean settled down when Sam didn’t react, sinking back into himself. “I don’t know how I got it,” he repeated, this time with far less heat as he joined Sam on the bed.

“Whatever you remember could be helpful, Dean.” Sam edged closer, bumping his shoulder into his brother’s in a silent gesture of encouragement. “Please.”

For a long moment, Dean weighed his words, staring down at the mark that had left him with too many unanswered questions of his own. There were reasons he’d not told this story to Sam before. “Remember that wendigo hunt I was on with Bill Harvelle right after 9/11? The one where he stepped in a trap and the damn thing busted his ankle?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Well…” Dean’s hand knotted into the quilt. He wouldn’t look at his brother, concentrating on the handprint on his thigh. “The part you don’t know is where I found two for the price of one when I finally located their cave.” Sam’s eyes widened, but Dean pushed on. “Nailed the first one quick enough, but the second one caught me off-guard; wasn’t expecting there to be two. It knocked me to the ground and we tussled for a while before I managed to put it down.”

He paused, his eyes lost. “Thing had gashed me up a bit, but I didn’t notice it’d kicked me until I tried to stand up and my leg suddenly felt like it was on fire. I couldn’t stand on it, hurt so bad; my thigh was laid open clear to the bone. Last thing I clearly remember before blacking out was fumbling with my phone, trying to call you.”

Sam let out a wounded sound, physically and emotionally recoiling from the thought that he could’ve lost Dean for good and not known for days or even weeks. No chance to save him. No goodbye. Not even a chance to help prepare and burn his body like they’d done for their mother and father. Just a phone call from Ellen or Bill to tell him that he would’ve been alone in the world, his only family a few cousins on their mother’s side that neither he nor Dean really trusted.

“Next thing I know, I’m waking up at the mouth of the cave. My clothes still look like they went through a lawn mower, but every cut and bruise is completely gone.” As if still unable to believe it himself, Dean ran the thumb of his left hand over the edge of the scar. “And this was the only scar. No other marks, no sign anybody or anything had even been there.

“When I hooked back up with Bill, we hiked it back and ran every test we could think of. We didn’t know what the Hell to think. But nobody’d ever heard of it before, and I came up still 100% Grade A farm-fresh human.” He shrugged. “So Bill and Ellen agreed to keep it quiet, and I just…”

“Ignored it,” Sam finished softly. He felt vaguely winded, shaken to the bone by Dean’s story. “Jesus, Dean… why didn’t you ever tell me about this?”

“ ‘Cause you were literally just starting college, and we’d just lost Dad over the summer. I figured you had enough on your plate. And then time went by, and I could’ve told you, but you were studying to be a hotshot lawyer and moving in with your sugar daddy and all. It just never seemed like a good time to bring up that I’d almost died and had a weird-ass scar from it that I couldn’t explain.” Dean gave a bit of a rueful grimace. “Wasn’t like I coulda guessed you’d end up sporting one of your own we could compare notes about.”

“But don’t you see, Dean? It’s perfect.” Sam’s fox eyes were suddenly backlit with careful hope, excitement tentatively creeping into his features. “It had to have been left by your guardian angel. Mom and Missouri always said you had one, and that’s the only explanation for how you got healed in that cave.”

Dean quirked an eyebrow. “O-kay… say I agree with that Grand-Canyon-sized leap in logic. How exactly is that ‘perfect’?”

“Because it means that your guardian can help us,” Sam explained, starting to vibrate in his enthusiasm. “You can call him or her into the open at night, and we can start getting some answers.”

“We’ve got no guarantee that he’ll help, Sam,” Dean countered gently. “He’s got no reason to, and nobody helps anybody for no reason except crazy bastards like us.”

“He, huh?” Sam was curious now, his head tilting slightly. “You’ve seen him?”

Dean shrugged, an exaggerated casualness in the gesture that belied whatever he might be feeling. Sam knew his brother’s emotions had to be as tangled as his own. “Blue eyes. That’s what I remember most. Sometimes when I’m dreaming, I’ll wake up and that’s all I can remember: just bright blue eyes that don’t ever blink.”

The description was vague, but Sam couldn’t help the frisson of knowing that laced through him. The certainty that pieces were falling into place too well to be coincidental. “I’ve seen him then, too: with Gabe.” When Dean looked sharply at him, Sam blushed faintly. “Not here. Tonight… when I was dreaming… it was like a vision dream, except not. I was somewhere else… it’s like I was _in_ the place I was seeing.”

“Out-of-body experience,” Dean replied, his voice low and stunned. “Astral projection, maybe. Jesus, Sam… what happened?”

“Gabe was there.” The throb of pain that accompanied those words was sharp and swift, and Sam felt his eyes tear up as he finally processed what he’d seen. “Gabriel. He was there and in chains, and there was another angel… Dean, they’re hurting him. They’re hurting him because of me… because I betrayed him. He wanted me, no matter how much it might cost him, and I betrayed his trust and now they’re…” The words choked off. “We’ve got to help him, Dean. Even if he doesn’t want me anymore, we can’t leave him like that. It’s not what we do.”

“What we do is hunt monsters, Sammy,” Dean reminded him gently.

“Angels aren’t monsters,” Sam countered. “Do you think your guardian would’ve saved your life in that cave if they were?”

“Sam-”

“No, you know what, Dean? Just don’t.” Sam shoved up off the bed, angry enough to need space before he did something he’d regret. “Just because they’re not human doesn’t mean they’re either dangerous to all humans in general or conspiring with Yellow Eyes against us in particular. Your angel saved your life, Dean. Gabe… _Gabriel_ was good to me. He took care of me and made sure that if he had to leave for any reason I wouldn’t be left scrambling.”

“That doesn’t mean that we need to go God knows where to dig him out of the mess he got himself into by climbing into bed with you,” Dean snapped back. “If he’s really an angel, that means God made those rules against human-angel nookie. _God_ , Sammy. You ever think of that? ‘Cause I got enough stuff trying to kill me without taking Him on.

“Now I promised we’d get at the truth, but if you’re right, and he’s an angel… not just any angel, but the freaking archangel Gabriel, even… then this is where I draw the line. It’s been a year, Sam. It’s time you moved on before something happens that we can’t walk away from.”

Dean turned and strode for the door, intent on hitting the head and giving Sam a chance to cool off and go back to his own room. His hand was on the knob and turning it to open the latch when he heard, soft and determined: “They know who Yellow Eyes is.”

It stopped him cold.

“I heard them talking,” Sam continued as Dean turned back to face him. Dean’s face was just as much of a mask as Sam’s now, but Sam knew Dean wouldn’t ignore this. Neither of them could. “One of the angels was taunting Gabriel about me, about how Gabriel should’ve known better because I have Azazel’s blood in my veins.”

“Azazel?” Dean echoed, taking a step closer to his brother. “You think that’s old Yellow Eyes’ real name?”

“It might be. The name Azazel comes up a lot in demon lore, and Yellow Eyes is the only demon that’s ever had access to me.” Sam’s expression wavered just a fraction at the thought he didn’t want to voice. “And we’ve never known why he wanted into my nursery that night. We just know what Mom said: that she ignored the signs of a demon entering because that was the deal she’d made to keep Dad alive, and then the next day she warded the house as soon as she dropped you off at kindergarten so that he couldn’t get back in again.”

A protective growl rumbled in Dean’s chest at the memory. He’d adored his mother for his entire life, but the bright flash of almost-hatred he’d felt when she’d finally confessed that secret was still keen as a blade, even after all these years. “So you think he did some kinda blood magic that night?”

“Based on a handful of taunts overheard during an astral journey aimed at an angel that clearly didn’t need the references explained?” Sam watched his sarcasm drag a laugh out of his brother, the air in the room feeling a little less heavy in its wake. “Maybe? I don’t know. But what I saw tonight is real, Dean, and it’s the closest we’ve ever come to finding solid answers about what happened that night.” He felt his expression turn pleading, much as he tried to keep it schooled into logical neutrality. “Even if you don’t care that I love him, isn’t that reason enough to try?”

Sam’s words hit like blows, and Dean had to close his eyes in the face of them. His little brother was right, of course: they’d spent years trying to find a source of information about Yellow Eyes that they could trust, and if what Sam had seen was real, then Sam’s archangelic lover was a lead they couldn’t afford to ignore. Not to mention that, if what Sam had seen was real, then the guy had been locked up just for sleeping with Sam. Fraternal protectiveness aside, something about that notion felt inherently, instinctively _wrong_.

And Sam loved the guy. Which meant he was going to try whether Dean was along for the ride or not. _Fuck._

“We’re suicidal to even be considering this; you know that, right?” Dean asked, coming to stand in front of Sam where he still sat on the bed. “There are a million reasons for us to leave this the Hell alone and just get on with our lives.”

Sam smiled his goofy, adorable sunrise smile. The one that made Dean feel ten stories tall. “Which practically guarantees we’ll win.”

A smile of his own tugged across Dean’s mouth even as he shook his head in resignation. “Not if I don’t get my four hours, it doesn’t.”

* * *

_June 30, 2005_

Sam had graduated with honors only a couple of weeks prior, and Dean had been every inch the embarrassingly proud big brother when Sam had walked across the stage to receive his diploma. And if the commencement speech delivered by Steve Jobs had hit a little too close to home for what the brothers were readying themselves to embark on, they were both experts by now at making sure no one else noticed.

Sam had deferred his enrollment in Stanford Law and turned down the internship offers, citing that family issues required him to take a year off before returning to his studies. There had been plenty of people who hadn’t understood, who’d tried to convince Sam that a gap year would only be detrimental to his potential career path; that his family should understand, and want what was best for him no matter what else was happening. To a one, he’d thanked them for their concern in a gentle, earnest tone that left them with no illusions. His decision wasn’t negotiable.

Jessica, whose own post-graduate plans were still on track, was perched on the edge of Sam’s bed while he packed with a quiet expression on her face. “You’re going after him.”

“We’re going to try,” Sam replied. “I can’t just let it lie, Jess… not after what I saw.”

He’d told her about his vision, editing out only the parts that would identify Gabriel or the others as angels. Jess had been remarkably understanding about everything, but she’d been raised Christian, and there were limits to how far Sam was willing to test her acceptance. She nodded, knowing all too well that arguing with Sam on this point was futile. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Take over this place while I’m gone?” She startled at that as Sam sat down beside her, taking her smaller hands in his. “I made you an authorized user on the account Gabe left, and you know this place is paid up for years. I don’t know how long I’m going to be gone, and it doesn’t make sense to leave this place sitting empty for however long that’ll be.” He took a breath, then pushed out the last part before she could reply: “And Brax has never lived anywhere else, anyway.”

Her eyes watered at that. “Sam…”

“He loves you as much as me or Gabe,” Sam rushed ahead. “And I don’t know what we’re going to run into. Hunting… it’s dangerous enough when you’re just going after things you can find lore on… that you know how to kill. What Dean and I may have to do, nobody’s ever done before. I can’t put Brax at risk like that, especially when we don’t know…”

“If you’re coming back,” Jess finished. Sam nodded, watching her absorb everything he wasn’t saying. And then she hugged him fiercely, wrapping her entire body around his own. “If you don’t live through this,” she whispered, “I’m kicking your ass when I see you again.”

Sam let out a choked little laugh at that, cradling her close. He’d seen it once: the path that his life would’ve followed if he’d decided to woo Jess instead of taking up with Gabriel. It could have been a good life, a life like his parents had been able to carve out for themselves. It could have been happy, and they could’ve had children, and Sam could’ve had everything he’d always told himself he’d wanted.

But it wouldn’t have happened, because the demons that Yellow Eyes had set on his trail would have tortured her to death as a message. As a warning to remind Sam that he didn’t belong to a “normal” life. Gabriel had been able to give Sam something like it, but only because he was a being whose power the demons hadn’t dared try their luck against.

For that alone, Sam was determined to rescue him, no matter the consequences.

* * *

_July 6, 2005_

Ostensibly, they’d come for the July 4th weekend: a celebratory trip in honor of Sam’s graduation. Dean had reached out to Bobby Singer, who had in turn convinced an old friend to lend them use of a cabin outside Whitefish, Montana for their get-away. Dean hadn’t told Bobby the real reason they needed someplace off the beaten path. Bobby hadn’t asked.

Sam was lying across the hood of the Impala as Dean turned out the last of the lights inside the cabin. They’d disabled the motion-activated lights that Bobby’s friend had installed around the property in the first few days they'd been here, and there would be no moon tonight. Making sure that the stars above them would be the only light for at least a mile around was the only precaution they could take.

There was no guarantee this would work. Sam tried not to fret while he waited for Dean to come outside, unable to control the gnawing fear in his gut that Dean’s guardian wouldn’t answer them. Either wouldn’t be allowed to because of Gabriel, or wouldn’t want to for the same reason. The gravel-rough voice still murmured in his memory, taunting him with the knowledge that this angel might be devoted to protecting his brother from harm, but that didn’t mean he would be loyal to them over Heaven. Especially since he had advised Gabriel to cultivate Heaven’s forgiveness and let go of whatever it was he felt for Sam.

“I think we’re all set,” Dean said, his voice soft despite the fact that there was no one for miles that might hear them. The darkness seemed to inspire quiet, and Dean’s life often depended on his ability to blend into the shadows. “You ready to do this?”

Sam took a deep breath and sat up, bracing his elbows on his knees and trying for a calm he didn’t feel. “Ready as I’ll ever be. You?”

Dean shrugged. “ ‘Bout the same, I guess.” He sat in one of the chairs near the firepit, and Sam could tell that Dean was almost as nervous as Sam himself. “You know that even if this works, we got no way to pull answers outta this guy if he decides he doesn’t wanna cooperate.”

“I know.” Dragging in another deep breath, Sam let it back out again slowly and steeled himself for whatever was going to come next. “No help for it. Let’s do this.”

Nodding once, Dean leaned forward. Bracing his own elbows on his knees, he closed his eyes and focused on the hazy image his guardian angel had left in his memory. On the handprint scar left on his inner thigh four years earlier, and everything it meant.

“I know you're there.” His voice was soft, addressing a presence that had been just outside his peripheral vision for more years than he could count. “I know you can hear me. You saved me from that wendigo. Hell, you've probably saved me from a lot more I don't even know about. But right now, it's Sammy that needs your help, and he's more important to me then any of your crazy rules. So get your feathered ass down here and answer his questions, or you can find some other dumbass to protect.”

A rustle of wings. Dean opened his eyes as suddenly there was a third person standing near the firepit. Of a height with Dean, dark hair looking temptingly mussed against the silhouette of night. The darkness shrouded their true color, but what Dean knew to be shocking blue eyes had been fixed on him from the moment of the angel’s arrival, gazing at him like he was the only thing in the world.

“Hello, Dean.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the series page for complete acknowledgements, notes, warnings & fanix.

~ooooOOOoooo~

“Hello, Dean.”

For a long moment, all Dean could do was stare. Sam watched his brother absorb the simple greeting like a shockwave, his bright green eyes blowing wide and his breath catching in his throat. It wasn’t just the fact that it had worked, and that the being standing in front of them had come at his call. It wasn’t that he couldn’t ignore the mounting proof that angels really did exist, or that one of them was dedicated to guard him from harm.

This creature… this man… this _angel_... had saved his life. And he didn’t even know its name.

And so they stared at one another, Sam’s presence at the edge of the Impala’s hood almost an afterthought: the angel unblinking in the darkness, and Dean unable to break with that gaze, caged by a connection that he was only beginning to feel the edges of.

Finally, in the distance, there was a rustle: an animal cry cut short. Something had been hunting, and the sound of the kill broke Dean’s spellbound reverie. He blinked to clear his vision, and when he stopped, it almost looked like the angel’s gaze had shifted just a fraction to his left. Why that seemed to give Dean space to breathe and think again, he wasn’t sure. “So… you got a name?”

“Castiel.”

The voice was deep, gravel rough. It sent tiny shivers tripping down Dean’s spine. “And you’re really my… guardian?” The words sounded pushed from his mouth; Dean wasn’t sure he could believe he was actually saying them.

“In a manner of speaking.” The stillness in the way Castiel held himself was so very alien, especially to Sam’s eyes. He was used to Gabriel’s more frenetic, touch-prone nature. “Most guardians are cherubim. I’m a Power, which is a seraphic order, but Michael deemed your protection to be too important to be left to the rank and file.”

“But you have been?” Dean asked, hoping his voice was starting to sound less strained with incredulity. “Protecting me, I mean?”

Impossibly, Dean swore he could see an imperceptible softening of the angel’s features. The hint of an affectionate smile hidden in the corners of his mouth. “I’ve watched over you since the day you were born.”

For a moment, Dean didn’t know how to react to that, or rather, didn’t know which reaction he wanted to let out: a flush of embarrassment that this angel had seen him at his most awkward, his most vulnerable, his most afraid; fury that the angel had been his protector for so long that he could have prevented Yellow Eyes from entering his family’s home, from doing whatever he’d done that night that gave him the illusion of a claim on Sam; gratitude for every moment of hope in the darkness that had consumed so many years of his life, every hunt he’d gotten through unscathed.

“It’s all right, Dean,” Castiel offered gently, obviously picking up on Dean’s confusion. “There have been many times I’ve wanted but not been allowed to intervene. You have no idea how frustrating it was to stand guard over you that night, rather than engage the demon in your brother’s nursery. But your mother made the deal of her own free will, and so I had no choice.” He half-turned to look at Sam. “I understand if you’re both angry that I didn’t, but I want you to know that if I could have struck him down, I would’ve.”

“So why didn’t you?” Dean asked, a trace of that anger coloring his tone. “So what if Mom made the deal? You didn’t.”

“But humans were gifted free will by our Father,” Castiel replied, turning back towards Dean. “While it’s true that you and your brother wouldn’t have been born if she hadn’t, your mother could have refused the deal, mourned your father and moved on with her life. Angels can do many things, but we can’t countermand a human’s free choice to accept the aid of demons, or the consequences of those deals… no matter how much we may want to.”

It wasn’t exactly the answer Dean wanted, but the regret laced into Castiel’s voice mollified him somewhat. And there was no changing it now, anyway. “So what exactly did the bastard do to Sammy, anyway? What’s he want my brother for?”

“He awakened certain gifts within your brother through a blood ritual.” There was a vague distaste in his voice now, the smudge of his brows in the darkness drawing together as he scowled. “Specifically by feeding Sam some of his blood. Whether or not Sam would have had special abilities without this interference, I don’t know, but his visions and astral traveling are the least of the power that Sam will be able to harness as a result of what the demon did.”

“It was real, then?” Sam felt the words catch in his throat, unsure which answer he was more afraid of getting. “What I saw… Gabriel in chains, the two of you talking… I really was there? I wasn’t just dreaming?”

Castiel nodded once. “Yes, Sam. Your longing for Gabriel, combined with the gifts woken in you when you were an infant, allowed you to project yourself into the Silver City, and it was his longing for you that allowed you to find where he is being held.”

“So it’s true?” Dean shifted to lean forward, eyes strangely intent. “Sam really was sleeping with an archangel?”

“I understand your reluctance to believe it, Dean,” Castiel replied softly. “But it is true, and it makes Gabriel’s transgression all the worse.”

“What the Hell’s that mean?” For a moment, Castiel looked as if he was debating with himself, deliberating his answer. Dean almost growled. “Don’t shine it up; just tell us.”

“Are you familiar with the Grigori?” At the shake of the brothers’ heads, Castiel sighed softly. “They were an order of cherubim. They hadn’t sided with Lucifer during his rebellion, but they saw Edom and Yeva’s expulsion from Eden as proof of Lucifer’s argument against honoring humans above our Father. They gathered humans to them in flocks, flaunting their divinity and commanding the humans’ adoration. Many used that adoration as a means to take human lovers, and there were children born of the women that were half-angel, half-human.”

“The Nephilim,” Sam said, though he wasn’t sure where he’d remembered the word from.

“Yes,” Castiel confirmed. “Their wild magicks were a plague on the world, and Father had no choice but to intervene. And so He sent the Archangel who sat at His Left Hand to preside over the Judgment of the Grigori, and then He bade the waters rise to wash the world clean again.”

“So you’re saying the Flood… the big one with the Ark and the animals and all that…” Dean’s eyes were huge with realization. “You’re saying that God sent it because a bunch of angels got out of hand with the humans and that was His idea of a reset?”

“That’s one way to put it,” Castiel confirmed, his tone light with something like amusement before dropping to a serious register again. “Father recalled all angels to Heaven, save the Grigori that were cast down as punishment… and then Michael, the Highest of the Host, took action to prevent any angel from ever being able to repeat the Grigori’s crimes. He and Uriel wove a curse over all of us, including themselves and their brother archangels, that was supposed to make it impossible for angels to exist among humans undetected.”

“You can't appear to us by sunlight or firelight,” Sam recalled softly. “That’s what Gabriel told me.”

Castiel nodded. “Our graces react when their light shines upon us, both revealing us to humans for what we are and alerting the First at the same time.”

“So Gabriel didn’t leave willingly.” Sam felt like he was choking on the words. “They… they took him, because if he was an angel and he was with me, they thought he must’ve… that I was…” Once again, Castiel nodded, and suddenly Sam couldn’t sit still any longer. He slid off the hood, pacing almost frantically as soon as his feet hit solid earth. “But I didn’t know he was an angel the whole time we were together; I knew he wasn’t human but I didn’t know what he was. He didn’t make me care about him like that!”

“It doesn’t matter, Sam,” Castiel countered softly. “You have been studying with the intention of becoming an attorney. You know there’s a difference between obeying the letter of the law and obeying the spirit of the law. After the Grigori, Michael became convinced that no human can give true and free consent to become the consort of an angel… even when the angel in question is the Archangel of Judgment himself.”

“Now, hang on just a damn minute,” Dean cut in, enraged by the implications behind what Castiel was saying. “I might not have trusted Gabe worth a damn, but that was because Sam’s had a demon after him since before he was even born and I didn’t know what the Hell Gabe was, either. But I know my brother, and so I _know_ that every step that relationship took was Sam’s choice. If I’da thought for ten seconds that Gabe had been using some kinda Jedi mind trick to turn Sam into his own personal mindless slut, I’d’ve ripped his lungs out long before Heaven could’ve gotten their hands on him.”

“Thanks, Dean.” Sam’s tone was desert dry. “I think.”

“You’re welcome,” Dean replied, not bothering to take his eyes off Castiel. “Gabe didn’t coerce Sammy into nothing, and he didn’t use any fancy angel mojo to trick him. So where the Hell is the holy justice in locking him up and torturing him for a crime he didn’t commit?”

“I understand that this must be difficult,” Castiel told him. “But Gabriel broke an ancient taboo by engaging your brother in a liaison. By all the laws of our kind, Michael is punishing him for it, and considering everything, he’s showing great leniency. Gabriel could have been expelled from the Host: permanently cast out as the Grigori and those that rebelled with Lucifer were. Instead, he remains in Heaven, albeit under guard, and he can eventually earn absolution.

He turned to Sam. “But it won’t be within your lifetime, and he almost certainly won’t be allowed to visit you in your Heaven after you die. If you care for him at all, you must move on from the relationship and control your powers so that you do not visit his prison again. What you had is over, and must be, if he has any hope of regaining his freedom or the position he once held at Father’s Left Hand.”

Sam’s mouth trembled, words trying to form and dying on his lips before he could say them. Dean stood up, drawing Castiel’s attention. “No. That’s not good enough. This ain’t about towing the company line; this is about punishing somebody for a crime he didn’t commit in the name of keeping anybody else from trying it. Well, I don’t know about angels, but we humans have pretty much proved that ain’t exactly a foolproof crime-fighting strategy. So either your boy Michael is a whole lot dumber than he’s made out to be, or he’s got a hair up his ass about it being Sam that Gabriel hooked up with for some reason. Either way, what he’s doing ain’t right. Gabe doesn’t deserve this.”

“That’s not up to you,” Castiel snapped. “Not even being the First’s Vessel gives you the right to-”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up at that, and edged a little higher when Castiel cut himself off. “What’d you just say?” Castiel’s mouth remained resolutely closed, and Dean took a step closer to him. “Did you just call me his Vessel?”

“That’s what the angel that was hurting Gabriel called me,” Sam chimed in, his expression melting into suspicious curiosity. “Except he called me Lucifer’s Vessel.”

“What’s he talking about?” Dean demanded. “What the Hell’s this Vessel crap mean?”

“It’s nothing that you need to be concerned with at this time,” Castiel evaded, his tone defensive.

“It got anything to do with the demon that’s after Sam?” Dean pressed, taking another step towards the angel. “The one with the yellow eyes?”

For half a heartbeat, Castiel was silent. Then: “The captain of the Grigori was an angel named Azazel. When he was cast down for his crimes, he became a demon like all the others… a demon whose eyes appear yellow when he possesses a human host.”

There was no sound save a light breeze in the leaves; the scuffle of a nocturnal animal in the underbrush. Sam felt like he’d stopped breathing. Pieces of the puzzle started falling together, and the picture they were forming in Sam’s mind was horrifying.

Dean had closed on the angel. “You’re gonna tell me everything, you sonuvabitch, or you can tell your precious First to get his feathery ass down here and explain it to me himself.”

Castiel met his gaze, his expression cool and undaunted by Dean’s hostility. “No.”

Between one blink and the next, the angel was gone.

* * *

Flopping down in his bed in the cabin, Sam tried to ignore the burn of tears in the corners of his eyes. Dean was outside, drinking and seething, so there was no reason that Sam couldn’t just let go and cry... except that he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to stop if he did.

A tiny voice in the back of his mind tried to hope. To tell him that it wasn’t over; that they would somehow get Castiel to come back, and convince him to answer all of the questions that had sprung up in the wake of all the answers they had gotten from him. But it was hard to listen to that voice just now. No one wanted he and Gabriel to be together other than he and Gabriel. Even Dean was only doing this because he wanted the information about Yellow Eyes that the angels could offer them.

Not ‘Yellow Eyes’ anymore, though. They had his name now: Azazel. Captain of the Grigori, a fallen cherubim. Someone that had every reason to hate Gabriel, and that Gabriel certainly had no reason to trust.

Turning over, hugging around his meager pillow, Sam squeezed his eyes closed against the gnaw of doubt in his gut. Had Gabriel known from the beginning? Or maybe he’d guessed after Sam had brought up Yellow Eyes the night he’d confronted Gabriel about the handprint? Had he truly asked Sam to come live with him because of how good they’d been together, as he’d said? Or had it been part of a chess game between Heaven and Hell, with Gabriel using a risky gambit in which he sacrificed his own freedom in an attempt to block Azazel’s access to Sam? Could he really trust anything that Gabriel had said to him? Or had everything really been... one-sided... all along…

_He wasn’t sure when he’d drifted off. Only that he was once again surrounded by music, by the gleaming white of what Castiel had called the Silver City, in the halls that he now knew led to Gabriel’s prison cell._

_Unable to bring himself to move, or leave, Sam could only stare down the corridor and let his hands clench and unclench while he battled with himself. He wanted to go to Gabriel, to demand answers. He wanted to run, to leave this place and learn to control his powers as Castiel had bid him so that he would never return. He wanted Gabriel to have cared for him for himself, and not as a pawn in a celestial game. He wanted to forget he’d ever cared for Gabriel at all._

_“You shouldn’t be here.”_

_Sam startled, spinning at the sound of the voice behind him. It was yet another angel: this one with periwinkle eyes and cormorant wings. “I…”_

_“It’s dangerous for you to do this,” the angel continued, touching him on the arm and drawing him up the hallway, in the opposite direction from Gabriel’s cell block. “For both of you. You can’t help him this way, Sam.”_

_Swallowing, Sam glanced in the direction of the cell block, then back at the angel still lightly holding his arm. “I don’t know what to do… I don’t even know right now if what we had was real.”_

_The new angel made a tsking sound, his expression clearly skeptical. “You know everything you need to know, Sam. All that’s left to do is act on it, or not. The choice is yours.”_

_“Free will.” Somehow, the shape of those words felt strange in Sam’s mouth… almost as if they didn’t belong in this place. “But what happens if I make the wrong choice? How do I even know what the right choice is?”_

_“The same way your mother did,” the angel replied. “But you have to go now, before someone comes that will punish Gabriel for your being here at all.” Panic gripped Sam at that, and he pulled back from the angel, taking quick stock of his surroundings. “It’s all right for the moment,” the angel assured him. “But I can’t shield your presence from the others forever, and the more times you come, the harder it will be to keep you from being sensed.”_

_Sam’s eyes narrowed at that, and he turned his full attention back to the angel beside him. “Who are you? And why would you want to keep people from knowing I’m here?”_

_A sad smile touched those ageless features. “My name is Abariel,” he said softly. “A Virtue sworn to Gabriel’s service… and if you think about it, that should tell you everything you need to know about why I’m keeping the others from knowing you’re here.”_

_Anger flashed in Sam’s chest, bright and hot, rebelling against the cryptic answers. “Is it an angelic trait to give half-answers to the really important questions? Because it’s really starting to piss me off.”_

_It drew a startled laugh from Abariel, much to Sam’s irritation. “No, Sam… more like a cultural idiosyncrasy. But you really do have all of the information you need to answer the questions that plague you. You just have to trust yourself, and the birthright that Edom refused to be denied.” Sam’s eyebrows drew together at that, confusion and curiosity overriding his anger, but Abariel placed a hand on his chest before he could speak. “You have to go. Now, or it will be too late.”_

_An imperceptible shove from that hand, and Sam was once again careening through waterfalls of rainbow light, falling back into himself but somehow slower than before, Abariel’s words following him as he tumbled back to Earth._

* * *

How long Dean stayed out by the Impala, he couldn’t say. All he knew was impotent fury rattling around in his chest kept distracting him from the beer he was trying to drink, refusing to let him get tired enough to sleep. He’d been determined to get answers for Sammy’s sake, but everything they’d learned had either infuriated him or begged a dozen new questions. And his guardian, damn his hide, had the audacity to decide for them what they did or didn’t need to know.

And just like Dean had told Sam before they’d called Castiel down, they had no way to compel answers from an angel. With a demon, they could use a devil’s trap to hold them in place until they’d gotten the information they needed. Nothing they knew of had a similar effect on angels, and it wasn’t like they were going to get an angel to tell them what the Heavenly equivalent of a devil’s trap was.

Finally, having stewed for what felt like hours, Dean glanced at the sky in an attempt to gauge the time. There were still a few hours before dawn, and the sky had yet to begin lightening on the horizon. It was worth a try, if only to give vent to his frustration.

“Didn’t know guardian angels were allowed to be cowards,” Dean sniped at the empty air. “I mean, seriously? Flapping off when things get a little hot for you? Not awesome, man. You can do better than that.”

“As can you.” Dean turned towards the voice, which had sounded without so much as a swish of a feather behind him. Castiel had one eyebrow cocked. “Really, Dean? I wouldn’t answer your questions in the face of belligerence, so you’re going to try taunting me into doing so?”

Dean shrugged. “Got you back here, didn’t it?” He turned a bit further and picked up his half-forgotten beer from the ground, taking a long drink.

“Only because I don’t want to listen to what will surely become increasingly ridiculous attempts to play against insecurities I don’t possess.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself,” Dean grunted, stepping up to sit on the hood of the Impala. “Look: I get that you’re trying to be a good soldier here. Just following orders and keeping your head down, which it sounds like this Michael of yours prefers. But I’m not a soldier, and Sammy’s all I’ve got left in this world. He’s my reason. Always has been. So if it’s your job to protect me, then you need to help me protect him, because there ain’t no me if there ain’t no Sam.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then Dean’s eyebrows shot up in surprise as Castiel heaved a sigh, joined Dean on the Impala’s hood and took the beer right out of Dean’s hand. His face screwed up in dislike after he took a swig, handing the bottle back to his charge. “You drink truly inferior spirits, Dean. I don’t know how you stomach that.”

It drew a laugh from the human as he lifted the bottle to his lips and finished it off, then tossed it to the dirt beside the car. “Next time I’ll try to remember that the angel’s share is apparently literal in my case.” Castiel let out a soft grumble of agreement, and Dean let out a sigh of his own. “Seriously, Cas: what’s this whole thing about? And why Sam?”

“Demons are not the only ones that can possess human hosts,” Castiel began slowly. “If it’s necessary for us to go amongst humans for any length of time undetected, we can ask a human to allow us use of their body as a vessel. We can only do so if the human consents, and only in times of great need in the service of God. The ability to be an angel's vessel is essentially genetic, passed down through family bloodlines.”

“Okay… so how do Sam and I fit in?” Castiel hesitated for a moment, and Dean let out an annoyed breath. “Cas…”

“There is an age-old prophecy,” the angel continued. “That a scion of Michael and a scion of Lucifer would join together, and from them would be born brothers strong enough to bear the First and the Morningstar during their final battle. The Winchesters are of Michael’s blood, and the Campbells, your mother’s family, are Lucifer’s.”

Dean’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Wait… wait: you’re telling me that me and Sam are supposed to be the prom dresses that Michael and Lucifer wear to _Armageddon_?!”

“It’s not absolute,” Castiel assured him. “In order for them to face one another, Lucifer must free himself from the Cage that has held him for aeons, and the only way to do that is for the 66 seals on the Cage to be broken. The first is that a Righteous Man must shed blood in Hell, and the last is the death of Lilith, the mother of demons and the first woman created by God, at the hands of Lucifer’s Vessel.”

“Cas, what the Hell-”

“We won’t let it happen.” The words were spoken so fiercely that it took Dean aback, even as Castiel locked eyes with him. “I’m sworn to protect you, and I will do so or be destroyed in the attempt. If the first seal does not break, the others cannot be broken.”

“Oh.” The implications of that statement hit Dean like a freight train. Unable to hold Castiel’s gaze, Dean looked away, staring at a clump of leaves near the firepit and trying to wrap his mind around the answers he’d demanded but wasn’t anywhere near ready to hear. “Awesome.”

“I’m sorry, Dean.” Carefully, as if he wasn’t sure the touch would be welcome, Castiel reached up and put a hand on Dean’s left shoulder. “I should never have let it slip that you were Michael’s Vessel; that was foolish of me, letting myself react to your insult against Michael.”

“Yeah? Well, ain’t nothing I’ve been told about him is exactly giving a great impression here.” Wishing he had another beer at hand, Dean settled for fidgeting with his ring, twisting it back and forth around his finger. “I mean: first, he puts Gabe in chains for being the first angel to want to get bendy with a human in a couple thousand years; nevermind that Gabe is probably the last guy in Heaven to try and pull off using the angel-roofie trick to do it. And now I find out that I got assigned extra-special protection because Michael figures that without it, I’m gonna get killed, wind up in Hell and somehow jumpstart the Apocalypse?” Dean snorted. “Just saying: I might be his vessel, but nobody better expect me to be his biggest fan just now.”

“Gabriel is far from the only angel to experience such strong attraction to a human.”

The softness of his tone made the words feel like a confession. Dean glanced up to see Castiel gazing up at the sky, his expression serene and yet somehow lost. “Yeah?”

“It’s happened many times since the Grigori’s crimes were committed. But none of the others that have loved humans more closely than is allowed have ever risked so much.” He turned his gaze back towards Dean, those blue eyes focused on his face as if mapping constellations among his freckles. “The pain of love denied, or even of a fleeting taste stolen once and never again indulged, is better than destroying yourself and the one you love by trying to have what can never be.”

There were tears in Dean’s eyes suddenly, his heart thudding painfully in his chest as he stared into those shadowed cobalt eyes. The world spun, and his mind superimposed those eyes in another place, filled with anguish. With fear. A voice echoed in his memory: _*Stay with me, Dean… just hang on a little longer… I know it’s bad… I’ll fix it, beloved; I promise… please just hang on…*_ A sob of relief, punctuated by a soft brush of lips.

Castiel was still gazing at him when the memory slid away, leaving Dean dragging air into his lungs like he’d just run a marathon at full speed. The sweetness of that kiss had followed him into unconsciousness, had haunted his dreams ever since, making him ache for want of something that until this moment he hadn’t even been sure had been real. “You sonuvabitch,” he murmured raggedly. “Don’t you dare sit there and tell me-”

“There’s nothing to tell, Dean.” There was a throb in that gravel-rich voice, an echo of a profound ache. “Not if I wish to remain by your side.”

Jaw hanging open, locked into immobility by a dozen conflicting impulses, Dean finally did the only thing that felt logical in that moment: he reached out with both hands, grabbed the lapels of the shirt Castiel wore, and slammed their lips together in a bruising kiss.

It shocked a sound out of Castiel, muffled by his lips as Dean’s hands slid around the angel’s waist and torso, pulling him even closer. Castiel’s hands had come up to Dean’s shoulders, almost as if he was about to push Dean away, but they exerted no pressure as Dean’s tongue slid through the soft part in Castiel’s lips, deepening the kiss until the angel was actively, hungrily, desperately kissing him back, and those hands were sliding up from his shoulders to wind around Dean’s neck and cling like the world was going to end around them if he didn’t.

Somehow, they wound up sprawled back across the hood, Castiel beneath Dean’s weight as they explored each other’s mouths until they were drunk from it. The angel’s mouth yearned towards Dean’s as he finally eased back, staring down at the shadowed face of his guardian and wishing he could see the soft swell of Castiel’s kiss-stung lips.

Sam had been through this with Gabriel… had endured this for years without complaint. Dean was ready to tear down the vaults of Heaven itself if it meant breaking the curse that denied him the chance to see his angel looking thoroughly debauched by a single kiss.

“We shouldn’t have done that,” Castiel breathed, unable to tear himself away from Dean in spite of the danger.

“Why?” Dean challenged. “Because Michael figures angel mojo cancels out human ability to consent?”

“Would you have done that if you didn’t know I was your guardian angel?” Castiel countered. “If you hadn’t known that I saved your life that day in the cave… if you met me in a bar and thought I was merely another human… would you have kissed me the way you did just now?”

Reaching up, Dean ran a thumb along Castiel’s puffy lower lip. “If I’d met you in a bar, angel, I’d’ve dragged you into the alley and blown you until those blue eyes were permanently crossed.”

“Dean!” Castiel pushed at Dean’s shoulders, sounding absolutely scandalized. “Be serious.”

“I’m always serious when it comes to blow jobs, Cas.” Grinning, Dean brushed another kiss over Castiel’s lips, still parted in an ‘o’ of surprise.

As if it had unlocked his muscles, Castiel firmly pushed Dean away and slid off the Impala’s hood, shaking his arms until his shirt and coat hung properly again. “This isn’t funny, Dean. You know the punishment Gabriel suffers because he indulged his passion for Sam. What do you think will happen to me if Michael finds out about this?”

“Depends on how he sees things after we break Gabe outta jail.”

Castiel rounded on Dean, only to find that the human had slipped from atop the car and was standing only a few inches away, looking as deadly serious as Castiel had ever seen him. “That’s not possible. Sam’s ability to project himself into the Silver City is astral only. No human has ever corporeally entered the Silver City without being assumed there by the Father Himself.”

“Well, they say there’s a first time for everything,” Dean replied. “And what Michael’s doing to Gabe ain’t any more right than what he’d do to you. So one way or another, me and Sam are gonna bust into Heaven, spring Gabe, and then me and Mike are gonna have a chat about how to handle little brothers when it seems like they live to piss you off.” He bent, picked up the bottle lying in the dirt, and walked over to place it in the garbage bin near the cabin. “You gonna help, or not?”

Mouth agape, Castiel stared at Dean for almost a full minute before he managed to compose himself. “What would you have me do?”

“Get us in.” Dean closed the distance between them again, drawn by the scent of stardust that clung to Castiel’s skin. “You said humans can be brought into Heaven in one piece; there’s gotta be a way to do it that doesn’t involve a Godly miracle… a back door, secret tunnel. Something.”

“You have no idea what you’re asking.” Castiel wanted to move, to push Dean away before his nearness made the angel lose his grip on what little common sense he had left. “To rebel against Michael this way… Dean, if we fail, I will be cast down from the Host. You and Sam could both be killed even attempting this. And even if we succeed, the wrath of the Host will be brought down on all of us. None of us will know a moment’s peace for the rest of whatever lives we have left.”

Stepping into the angel’s space, Dean reached up and cupped the angel’s jaw with his right hand. He saw Castiel’s eyes shutter closed as he ran his thumb over the angel’s lower lip again, and then leaned down to brush another gentle kiss against that open mouth. “If there’s anything worth dying for?” he murmured. “This is it.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the series page for complete acknowledgments, warnings, notes and fanmix.

~ooooOOOoooo~

_July 7, 2005_

Dean still wasn’t in the cabin when Sam woke. The cool light of dawn was filtering through the grit-covered windows, and Sam surfaced from sleep with none of the shock that he’d experienced the last time he’d traveled to the Silver City. It was as if the angel that had sent him back had done so more gently than Castiel had, sending Sam tumbling into a REM cycle rather than crashing back through the veil and into wakefulness.

“Abariel,” he murmured, sounding the name out as he shifted to sit up, swinging his legs and setting his feet lightly on the floor. The angel had told him something important before sending him back; he just needed to sort out exactly what it all meant. And yet somehow, everything felt lighter this morning, despite what had felt like a miserable failure the night before. 

Stomach growling, Sam huffed out a sigh and padded to the common area of the cabin. He'd never been able to really think properly on an empty stomach first thing in the morning. He also knew that the smell of bacon frying would bring Dean inside no matter how much of a pique he might still be in. Clearly, his brother had decided to sleep in the Impala, which Sam knew he did more often than not when he was traveling between hunts. Dean had always found the backseat of the Impala one of the most comfortable places in the world; even when they’d been children, his brother had never had trouble falling asleep in his corner during family road trips.

Almost absently, Sam grabbed an apple from the bag in the refrigerator along with the rest of the breakfast provisions and took a healthy bite from it as he kicked the door closed. It was nice to have something to munch on while he worked on scrambled eggs, bacon and coffee, and left his mind free to tumble over Abariel’s words rather than being distracted by the gnaw in his stomach. The key was there. It had to be.

Sure enough, the door opened as soon as the bacon began to crisp, and his brother came inside looking rumpled and still half-asleep. His hair was sticking up in spiky disarray despite what had likely been a valiant effort to finger-comb it and one cheek was still ruddy from having been pressed against the backseat of the Impala for the past few hours. “Coffee’s ready,” Sam offered by way of greeting, pointing to the old metal percolator on the back burner with the spatula.

Dean grunted an acknowledgment and grabbed a mug, filling it almost to the brim and drinking deeply before topping it off and moving to sit at the nearby table. “You get any sleep?”

“Some.” Sam turned the bacon and then poured his pre-beaten eggs into the waiting skillet. It was nice to have a task that required him to keep his eyes on his work, rather than meeting Dean’s increasingly assessing gaze. “You?”

“My regular four hours.”

There was a chipper note in his brother’s voice that shouldn’t have been there. It turned Sam’s head in time for him to catch the secret satisfied smile that curled Dean’s lips just before he sealed them over the edge of the mug for another gulp of coffee. It was an expression that made no sense, given Dean’s reaction to the way their conversation with Castiel had ended… unless… Sam’s eyebrows shot up and he spun away from breakfast, staring at his surprisingly relaxed elder brother. “Dean, you didn’t!”

Dean glanced up from his coffee, his eyes going deceptively wide just before he set the mug down on the table and straightened to meet Sam’s gaze. “I got no idea what you’re talkin’ about, Sammy.”

“Castiel!” Sam all but shouted, gesticulating with the spatula. “Last night, after I went to bed. Dean, after all the crap you gave me-”

“If you let breakfast burn to yell at me, I’ll leave your ass here to eat it while I head for the closest Dunkin’.” Dean watched the threat strike home, closing Sam’s mouth around his umbrage and turning his little brother back towards the stove. “And no, Sam: I didn’t introduce Cas to the pleasures of the flesh. But I did manage to convince him to help us… I think.”

“You think?” Sam echoed. “And just how did you ‘convince’ him, Dean? Because I’ve seen that smile before; it’s your ‘I made time last night and it was awesome’ smile.”

Quirking one eyebrow, Dean got up and topped off his coffee, then poured a mug for Sam and started getting the table set for breakfast. “And exactly what makes you think that’s what it means?” he challenged lightly.

“When I was 15, and you snuck Rhonda Hurley into the house while Mom and Dad were making a run to her father’s old compound?” Sam returned. “Or what about that yoga instructor that distracted you away from that banshee hunt for an entire weekend; what was her name?”

“You can just shut your face anytime now,” Dean retorted, color rising along the back of his neck. “Mr. ‘I rubbed off with an archangel during a blackout party’.”

“God, you’re such a _jerk_ ,” Sam groused, moving the bacon into a bowl lined with paper towels to catch the grease and plating eggs for each of them. “I’m just saying, Dean: you have a tell.”

“Maybe,” Dean finally conceded. He grabbed a knife, coring and slicing what was left of Sam’s apple almost without needing to look and popping one of the wedges into his own mouth. “But there: before you can bitch about something else, I’ve had something good for me for breakfast.”

Throwing a face at his brother, Sam nonetheless sat down with him to tuck into breakfast without further comment.

It wasn’t until they’d finished their eggs and were working their way through a second pot of coffee, idly snatching pieces of bacon from the bowl more for the pleasure of the rich flavor than actual lingering hunger, that Dean finally addressed Sam’s accusation. “I’m not saying you’re right about last night, by the way… but I get it now. About you and him, I mean.”

The defensive wall inside Sam’s chest that he hadn’t realized he’d still been hiding behind cracked, and the surprised expression he turned on Dean in response was watery. “Really?” Dean’s eyes skated away from him as his brother nodded, reaching in to pluck one of the last remnants of bacon from the bowl. “So you and Cas… but… I thought last night was the first time you’d ever seen each other.”

“I didn’t really remember the time in the cave,” Dean agreed. “There were bits while I was outta my head from blood loss that felt like… fragments? Or maybe something my subconscious made up, like a dream? But…” He trailed off, covering the loss for words by finishing the last of his coffee. “God, Dad would fit us both out for pigtails if he could hear us now: gossiping about boys like something out of ‘Blossom’.”

“Stop invoking Dad’s artificial definition of masculinity as a deflection tactic,” Sam chided. “You’ve never actually bought into hyper-chauvinist biases against emotional intelligence and we both know it.”

The rebuke startled a laugh out of Dean. “Man, you really did go to college in California, didn’t you?”

“I really did.” Sam’s lips twitched, unable to protest the stereotype. “But the cave… there were things you remembered that you weren’t sure were real… like what?” Dean sobered, quiet for a long moment, and Sam wanted to reach across the table and make his brother look at him. “Dean…”

“He loves me, Sam.” The confession was so quiet, almost ashamed, that Sam couldn’t be sure Dean had really said it until he continued. “He’s been there my whole life… seen me at my worst… not just the times when I was bein’ reckless or when I let my temper get the better of me but… times when I was petty, or mean when I didn’t need to be. Times when I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see me but you because anybody else would’ve used it against me… and he was there, too, the whole time… and he loves me anyway. It’s… kinda huge, that there’s somebody out there that loves me like that.”

Sam let that settle over him for a moment, let Dean get comfortable with having said it out loud. With having given it voice and made it real. “Did something happen in the cave?” he prompted again. “When he saved you?”

“Not like that,” Dean denied brusquely. “Just… he let it slip how he felt about me back then. Just for a minute, ‘cause he was scared he’d gotten there too late to help, that I was too far gone. I thought it was a dream, or a hallucination… but after I got him to come back last night, we talked some more… and I realized that it wasn’t.”

He finally looked up at Sam then, and the determination in his eyes made Sam’s heart skip. Dean had always been his hero, the center of his world. And right now he looked every inch the hero that Sam had been waiting for since Gabriel had vanished from his life. “So we’re gonna bust Gabe out, and then I’m gonna see about setting this Michael guy straight on a few things. Then you and Gabe can live happily ever after, and me and Cas… well, we’ll see.”

Sam grinned at his brother, and Dean grinned back. The smiles of a pair of highly trained, perversely stubborn and unaccountably lucky troublemakers that were about to see just how much Hell they could raise.

From where he watched in the corner, shielded from their eyes, Castiel covered his face in his hands and groaned. _We’re all going to die._

* * *

Most of the day was spent poring over what research was available to the brothers through the Whitefish Community Library. Admittedly, there wasn’t much to go on. Most of the strategic information they needed could only come from direct knowledge or observation, and Sam wasn’t willing to risk Gabriel’s safety on attempts to direct his astral projections into a place he didn’t know anything about.

Dean couldn’t really blame him, but the result was a day largely spent piecing together a map of Heaven from what textual sources Sam could find using the library’s Internet, which they could only access for an hour at a time, print everything down, and then analyze while they waited for the computers to be freed up so Sam could go back and try to find something to fill the gaps. Not always easy in a public library to start with, and compounded by the number of people that were trying to find out information about the train bombing in London that had happened overnight.

They had dinner in town, careful to code their conversation as if they were merely discussing angel lore as an academic subject. It wasn’t the first time they’d needed to be discreet in how they phrased things to avoid ‘freaking out the Muggles’, as Dean liked to put it, but it left Sam feeling antsy. Every second they had to delay meant it was that much longer that Gabriel was being subjected to Zachariel’s cruelty, and he wanted nothing more than to get a rescue plan hammered out.

By the time they finally made it back to the cabin, the sun had completely set. Castiel was there when they came through the door, waiting for them. “Hello, Dean.”

Almost on autopilot, Dean crossed the room and set the apple pie they’d bought on the way out of town on the table, navigating in minimal light even better than Sam now did. Without a trace of self-consciousness, he then pivoted and closed on the angel, wrapping him into a hug that it took Castiel a moment to return. “Hey, Cas. Glad you could make it.”

“I’m always nearby,” Castiel assured him, slowly relaxing into the human’s embrace. It was warm, and surprisingly tight, and Dean’s skin smelled clean and earthy beneath the leather and aftershave that clung to him. Without really knowing why, the angel tilted his head slightly, leaned it against Dean’s shoulder and closed his eyes. Dean sighed just a little, his body relaxing fractionally in Castiel’s grip even as his arms tightened that much more, pulling Castiel just that much closer. As if that was the place where Dean thought Castiel belonged.

As if he wanted to never let go again.

There was a palpable stab of sadness in the air, and Castiel lifted his head to see Sam quietly puttering near one of the sleeping areas. His hazel eyes were careful to avoid looking at them no matter which way he turned, and the set of his mouth and shoulders was silently miserable. Castiel gently pulled away from Dean, gesturing at Sam when the question started to form on Dean’s lips, and stepped clear when Dean let him go with a nod.

“Sorry, Sammy,” Dean muttered guiltily, realizing himself how the open display of affection had to be making Sam feel… especially when Dean had been so vehemently against Sam’s relationship with Gabriel when Sam had finally confessed Gabriel’s non-humanity.

“Don’t apologize,” Sam replied with a shake of his head. Much as there was a tiny, resentful voice in the back of his mind that sniped over Dean’s seemingly-hypocritical behavior, the better part of Sam’s mind knew it wasn’t true. The logical part of him knew Dean’s reaction had been rooted in their mutual ignorance of Gabriel’s true nature and his fear for Sam’s safety from Azazel’s machinations. “We’re cool.”

Dean’s eyebrow quirked. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” Sam hoped he sounded as sure of that as he wanted to feel. “And anyway, we’ve got work to do.” He moved to the table and sat even as Dean took his pie into the kitchen and cut himself a large slice. When Castiel stood where he was, almost awkward between them, Sam gestured for the angel to join him. “We’ve been trying to do some strategic research today,” he started, “but the only thing I found that really talked about any kind of layout of the Silver City was the Book of Enoch.”

Castiel nodded. “That’s to be expected. Those writings are not entirely accurate, of course, but Father granted Enoch special access, since He intended to transmute Enoch into an angel.”

“That’s even possible?” Dean asked, returning to the table and settling in just off Castiel’s right elbow.

“Father is all-powerful, Dean,” Castiel replied a little stiffly, as if resenting the implication. “There is nothing that is beyond His Will. When Enoch accepted the destiny Father wanted to bestow, he was brought into Heaven and became the archangel Metatron: the scribe of God and the keeper of His Word.”

“Metatron?” Dean echoed. “Sounds more Hasbro than Heavenly.”

Castiel’s face knitted in confusion. “I don’t understand that reference.”

“Can we focus, please?” Sam snapped impatiently. An apology hovered on his tongue as Dean shot him a glare, but Sam swallowed it back. He wasn’t really in the mood to listen to Dean flirting just now, and he could smooth any ruffled feathers once they had a plan hammered out. “Okay, so… based on what I was reading, there are four main gates, called the Watchtowers: one for each cardinal direction. Is that pretty much accurate?”

“Yes.”

Between one blink and another, four mugs that had been in the cupboard were suddenly on the table, equidistant in a perfect square. Something like smoke slowly swirled into life around them, each a mere impression of color in the shadows.

Dean leaned forward with a fascinated smile curling across his mouth. “That is so cool.”

“It’s merely an illusion,” Castiel replied before gesturing to the mug wreathed in red mist directly across from himself. “That represents the Southern Gate, which belongs to Michael. It would be effectively useless to try our luck there. The angel that he stationed there as keeper of the gate, Temaniel, might be persuaded to be sympathetic, but Midael is the captain of the celestial armies and commander of the Southern garrison, and he would report anything unusual to Michael at once.

“It would be likewise foolish to attempt the Northern Gate,” he continued, gesturing at the mug surrounded by yellow mist that sat only a few inches from his hands. “That was my garrison before I was assigned as Dean’s guardian.”

“Why’s it a no-go then?” Dean asked sharply. “You had to’ve had some pals back there that might be convinced to look the other way.”

“No,” Castiel refuted. “Uriel is the archangel that commands that garrison, but because of its location and purpose, the archangels Phanuel, Mael and Aharnishiel also use that gate when they leave or return to Heaven. Caila, the keeper of the gate, would not risk their wrath even to help a former comrade… especially because Phanuel has declared firmly in support of Gabriel’s punishment, since he is the archangel of penance.”

Sam frowned, pushing away the stir of panic in his chest. Even getting to Gabriel at all was sounding more difficult by the minute… but getting back out again was likely going to be even harder. “So we’re left with the East and the West,” he murmured, trying to work the problem instead of giving his fear its head.

“The West was... Gabriel’s Watchtower.”

Gently spoken though they were, the words still drove knives through Sam’s heart even as his eyes snapped to the mug Castiel had placed in front of him, the blue smoke curling and twisting almost playfully. Tears blurred his eyes before he could stop them, and Sam desperately wished that he could’ve brought Abraxas along. Even after more than a year without him, he still missed Gabriel so much that it hurt to breathe if he touched the empty place where the archangel had been inside his heart.

Dean had placed a hand on Castiel’s wrist, signalling him to give Sam a moment; when he heard Sam’s breath even out, he took over asking the questions. “With Gabe out of play, who’s in charge up there?”

“Gamaliel: Gabriel’s chief lieutenant.” Castiel let his gaze wander to Dean’s fingers, and he slowly shifted his hand until Dean’s grip was laced into his own. “He was with Gabriel during the judgment of the Grigori, and later at the destruction of Sodom. I’m reasonably certain that both he and Abariel, a Virtue sworn to his service, would be willing to help us, as would Bhavaniel and Chaniel, the keepers of the gate and the Winds of Change.”

“But they’re gonna be watching that whole garrison pretty close, ain’t they?” Dean guessed, hearing the hesitation in Castiel’s voice.

Sam found his voice then, pushing past the lump in his throat. “Abariel helped me,” he said, drawing an expression of genuine surprise from Castiel. “I went back last night, hoping I could find a minute alone with Gabriel… Abariel stopped me. Told me that he’d been keeping other angels from sensing me, but that he couldn’t keep it up for long.”

“That explains why neither Gabriel nor I sensed you the first time you were there.” Castiel’s tone was wondering, almost calculating. “But he’s right: it would be difficult for him to disguise your presence in the Silver City for very long, and if he were caught doing so, he would likely be imprisoned as well.” His blue eyes focused on Sam. “You do understand how serious this is? This plan to somehow free Gabriel from his punishment? It’s never even been attempted before: not once in all eternity.”

“Maybe not where you hang out,” Dean countered. “But Prometheus was supposed to be chained up for all eternity ‘cause he pissed Zeus off, and he got let loose, didn’t he?”

“It was Zeus’ son that released him from his punishment,” Castiel reminded his charge. Dean’s grip was strong in his own, and even this simple touch was enough to prove Gabriel’s challenge correct. Letting go was harder than it sounded, at least when it came to these two, apparently. “But that’s another matter entirely; the Olympians have always conducted their affairs very… strangely… and certainly not in the same manner that Heaven is ordered.”

“So that leaves us the Eastern Gate,” Sam continued, hoping to head off a tangent that could be saved for a much later date… presuming any of them survived what they were trying to plan. “Raphael’s, right? The archangel of healing?”

Castiel nodded. “Although he is far less gentle among his brother angels than he has ever been in his dealings with humans, Raphael might be convinced to allow our passage through the gate to go unreported. And Hadriel, the keeper of the gate, is more sympathetic to matters of the heart than the garrison commander, Gazardiel.”

“That’s our way in, then.” Dean grinned at Castiel, quick and victorious. “You can fly us to the East Gate, we talk our way in, and then Sammy uses the way he and Gabe are pining for each other to track him down.”

“But then how do we actually let him out?” Sam asked, his tone deflating Dean’s bravado just a little. “Or get back out again without a legion of angels finding out about the jailbreak before we make it back home?”

“I’m afraid that even getting the two of you to the gate will be far more difficult than simply ‘flying’ you there,” Castiel added. He squeezed Dean’s hand when the human’s expression grew snippy, using his left hand to take up Dean’s fork and offer him a mouthful of pie by way of apology.

The way Dean’s eyes flicked up to his and held them a moment before those lips wrapped around the fork and drew the pie into his mouth made everything inside Castiel flip over with the sudden fierceness of _want_. Sam delicately clearing his throat did nothing to bank the flashfire in his veins, but it gave him enough to break the spell of that sultry human gaze and refocus on the task at hand. “Even the Gates of Heaven are not technically in this realm. They’re in liminal spaces, designed to allow for passage between the two realms. There are paths to the gates in this world, but they’re hard to find and well-guarded.”

“So where do we find the path to the Eastern Gate?” Dean pressed. He saw Castiel hesitate again and both eyebrows went up in expectation. “Cas, come on…”

“Deep in the Eynali mountains,” Castiel told them. As he spoke, the mists surrounding the mugs swirled and came together, coalescing and building into an image of red soil and grey mountains. “Four days’ journey from a village in the Nishaz Pass so isolated that it has no name, at the end of a track so narrow and winding that it is better suited to goats than men.”

“So we just gotta climb a mountain?” Dean shrugged, leaning back in his chair. He still hadn’t released Castiel’s hand, the angel’s grip surprisingly natural in his own. “Doesn’t sound too bad.”

Sam’s eyes had narrowed. “That’s just where it’s hidden. What’s guarding it, Cas?”

Despite not needing to, Castiel took a breath before answering. The more information he gave them, the more determined they became. They were resolved; he knew that. But if he gave them this, there would be no turning back.

Both humans waited, torn between giving him space to commit himself and pushing for the answers their natures demanded. Castiel found himself seeking Dean’s face, finding a steady certainty in the candlelight soul of this beautiful descendant of Edom. For all his eternal, eidetic memory, he could not pinpoint the moment when the visage of Dean Winchester had become the thing from which Castiel drew the most comfort.

“The Gate lies in the place West of Nod and East of Eden,” he told them. “To even reach those lands, one must travel to a place deep within that hidden pass called the Monastery of Shadows, and be granted passage by the one whose stronghold it has been for millennia.”

“And who’s that?” Dean asked, caught by the intensity of Castiel’s gaze. The gravity in his voice.

Castiel’s eyes never left his. “The first grandchild of God. The one who bears the Father’s Mark, that no descendant of Edom may harm without incurring His Wrath sevenfold.”

Behind them, Sam choked. Dean’s eyes went wide. “Are y-... you’re saying that in order to even get to the gate, first we gotta somehow talk our way past _Caine_?!”

“Yes.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincerest apologies to all my lovely readers that this final chapter is going up late. dance_the_code, who has been one of my dearest friends for over 20 years, was seriously ill and spent several days in the hospital. She is recovered now, thanks be, and my regular posting schedule for this 'verse will resume next weekend.
> 
> Also a quick note: my version of Caine is very different than canon's, and is instead heavily influenced by his portrayal in the original Vampire: the Masquerade RPG franchise by White Wolf. As this is an AU, I am citing creative license in using this version of him rather than what the SPN writers came up with, but I wanted to give everyone a head's up now to avoid any possible confusion. I love you all!
> 
> Please see the series page for complete notes, acknowledgements, warnings & fanmix.

~ooooOOOoooo~

_July 8, 2005_

Out of deference to Sam’s feelings, Castiel didn’t stay with Dean when the brothers finally went to bed that night. Neither human slept well until after the sun had risen, their dreams laden with foreboding as the reality of what they intended to attempt began to settle into their minds.

It was well after noon when Dean woke, feeling bleary and sluggish. Sam was still asleep across the way, his expression smooth but not quite peaceful, his mouth twitching every so often as he dreamed. For long, silent minutes, Dean sat there at the edge of his bed, staring at his sleeping baby brother and letting his thoughts wander.

Even in the earliest, deepest blurs of his memory, Sam had been a part of his life. He’d been only three years old when he’d been told his mother was growing him a little brother or sister in her tummy; four when his father had woken him to say that his babysitter, Mrs. Henderson, would be there if he had a bad dream and would make his breakfast in the morning, because his mom was going to the doctor to have them get the baby out of her stomach. Dean had barely been able to sit still all the next day until his father had come back and taken him to the hospital to see that his mother was just fine and he now had a brand new little brother named Sam. Dean had promptly declared him Sammy, because Sam was his and he’d wanted everyone to know it right from the start.

Had that really been twenty-two years ago when he’d first glimpsed this person in whom his whole life had since been anchored? Red-faced and squint-eyed and sleepy, with wispy tufts of hair and tiny feet and hands with a surprisingly stubborn grip for one so new to life, that had grabbed his big brother’s finger and not let go until he’d needed to be nursed? It seemed impossible now to imagine Sam had ever been so small. But tiny or tall, Sam had always needed Dean, and Dean had always needed Sam right back. It had been the one thing in Dean’s entire life that he’d never rebelled against even in his own mind. Even now, in the face of the impossible, Dean would only turn back if Sam asked him to.

And Dean knew his brother. Gabriel was the love of Sam’s life. It wasn’t in Sam to turn back; not until Gabriel was safe. Not even if they both died to free him.

Finally pushing to his feet, Dean grabbed his cell phone and a bottle of water and padded barefoot out of the cabin. The Impala’s sleek black finish gleamed in the early afternoon light, and Dean ran an appreciative hand over her warm chassis before pushing himself back up to perch on the hood. He’d spent more time with this car in the past two decades than most people he knew. Watching the stars with Sam. Learning how she worked and how to keep her running from his father. Traveling with his mother, and later with only the radio and the purring rumble of her well-tuned engine for company, everything he needed for his hunts carried safely in her trunk. Kissing an angel and finding his resolve sprawled across her hood.

He lay back now, feeling the warmth baking up into his muscles as he hit a speed-dial and waited for the line to connect.

_*“Yeah?”*_

“Hey, Bobby.”

_*“Dean? Don’t tell me you two idjits have run across a job while you’re supposed to be taking an actual vacation.”*_

“Not exactly.” Dean let the fingers of his free hand spread out across the heated metal, drawing in a deep, slow breath and then letting it out. “Need to know if you can tell me where the Eynali mountains are. And before you ask: no, I don’t know how to spell it.”

_*“It’ll be a damn minute, then. Gotta fire up the Internet and see what I can find. Call you back.”*_

The line disconnected and Dean let himself stay where he lay for long, uncounted minutes, soaking the sunlight into his bones. It was a stolen moment, lazy and languid, but Dean had a deep-rooted certainty that it would be the last one he’d have for a while, if ever again.

He didn’t begrudge that, in the end. Not against Castiel, who was helping for the love of him but oh, so reluctantly, all the while warning of the reprisals that would come against them if they failed. Not against Gabriel, who had risked everything for want of Sam: something Dean understood all too well. And certainly not against Sam, whose eyes had always sought out Dean whenever he couldn’t or didn’t know how to find his way alone.

The phone chimed Bobby’s ringtone and Dean picked up at once. “Hey, that was quick.”

 _*“You musta taken a nap,”*_ Bobby sniped. _*“Took me almost an hour to find it. And what the Hell do you need to know about a mountain range in northern Iran for, anyway?”*_

That had Dean sitting up and sliding off the Impala in shock, his legs folding under him on the dusty earth as he landed. “ _ **Iran?!?**_ ”

 _*“Iran.”*_ The older man’s voice was stern, terse in a way that Dean knew telegraphed worry over disapproval. _*“What in Hell are you two planning, boy?”*_

Swallowing hard, Dean knew there was no way he could give a complete answer that Bobby would believe. Hunter or no, there were some things that Dean had never found a way to share with anyone but his family. “Nothing. It was mentioned in something Sam looked up at the local library and I was just wondering.”

_*“Exactly when did you think you learned how to lie to me so’s I wouldn’t know you were lyin’?”*_

Unable to help himself, Dean gave a chuckle and grinned. “It’s nothing you need to worry about, Bobby. Seriously.”

 _*“Serious as my foot up your ass if you don’t tell me what the Hell you’re about to step into, Dean. Running around the Midwest on your own is one thing. But you don’t even like to fly across country, and suddenly you’re asking about an obscure mountain range in the Middle East.”*_ There was an expectant beat. _*“Start talkin’, kid, or you’re gonna wake up one morning with every alias you’ve got red-flagged for every Barney Fife in the country.”*_

“You wouldn’t!”

_*“Try me.”*_

The cabin door opened. Dean peered up to see Sam’s head poking out curiously and he waved. When Sam spotted that he was on the phone, he ducked back inside, but Dean knew it was only a matter of time before Sam would come back out with questions and coffee. “Okay, look: Sam shacked up with somebody a couple years back, right after the Christmas you met him. Thing is: the guy wasn’t human, and his kind have rules against hooking up with us, so when they found out, it landed him in some pretty hot water. Me and Sam don’t precisely agree with their version of a criminal justice system, so we’re gonna go spring him, and the only way to get where he’s being held is up in those mountains.”

Dead silence echoed in the wake of his confession almost long enough for Dean to think the call had dropped. Then: _*“Christ on a crutch… Dean, have you lost your mind? Do you even know what it is he was sleeping with? Or what you’re walking into?”*_

“Believe it or not, we do.” Dean swallowed a gulp of the water, his mouth dry from even having given that much away. “Look, Bobby: there’s stuff I can’t tell you, but we have to do this. What they’re doing to the guy ain’t fair.”

_*“That don’t mean you gotta risk spending the rest of your life in an Iranian prison trying to find a way to get him out of wherever sleeping with your brother landed him! Dean, think about this-”*_

“They know about Yellow Eyes.”

Saying the words left Dean feeling winded. For far too many years, the truth of his mother’s deal and the demon’s interest in his brother had been a secret more closely guarded than anything else. Only Bobby had ever earned enough of Dean’s trust to be told anything, and even then he’d kept much of the story from the older hunter. But this, at least, Bobby would understand. “What they are? Yellow Eyes used to be one. They know his real name, his weaknesses. Maybe how to summon him. Maybe even how to kill him. If we can get Sammy’s loverboy outta his kind’s version of jail, we’ve got a shot at more than just a drip of knowledge or a hint of a sighting that we can try and run down. We’ve got a chance to end it once and for all… _before_ the bastard can finish playing out his long game.”

Another long pause. _*“Okay… okay. Look, either I’m coming up there or you two are coming down here. Either way, we’re going to have a long talk about all of this and you boys are going to tell me the whole truth about this mess, and then maybe we can figure a way to handle it that don’t involve you both having to figure out how to go mountain climbing in Iran without being arrested.”*_

Dean rolled his eyes. “Americans _do_ travel to Iran, and even come back again, without ever seeing the inside of a jail cell, Bobby.”

_*“And you’ve got a smart-enough mouth that it’s a wonder you haven’t spent more time in jail right here in the U.S. of A,”*_ Bobby retorted sharply. _*“God knows it wouldn’t take you long to piss somebody off who ain’t inclined to put up with Westerners in general.”*_

“Well, the way we’re going in ain’t exactly through official channels, anyway.” The door to the cabin opened again; sure enough, Sam was emerging with coffee in each hand and the bag of apples from the refrigerator dangling from one half-closed fist. “Listen, Bobby: you’re not gonna talk us out of this, and we’ve got somebody on the inside helping us out. It’s gonna be fine. I just need you to do something for me, okay?”

_*“What?”*_

Much as Dean hadn’t wanted an audience for this part of the conversation, there was no waving Sam off now. Better to just brave his way through it. “Not sure where we’re leaving from, but before we go, I’ll text you with where I leave the car and the keys. There’s an envelope in the weapons case in Baby’s trunk that has all the right paperwork. Just take care of her for me while we’re gone, and… if we don’t... come back... I’m trusting you to take care of the instructions in that envelope and find her a good home. Okay?”

_*“Dammit, Dean: I’m not letting you and Sam go off to do something that might get you both killed without at least knowing what it is you’re doing!”*_

“Just promise me, will ya?” Dean snapped, finally growing impatient. “You’re the only one I can ask, man. Please.”

A deep, resigned sigh. _*“A man gets tired of being the default executor of his friends’ wills after a while, you know,”*_ Bobby griped. _*“ ‘Specially when those friends all wind up bein’ younger than he is.”*_

“We all know what the life is when we sign up, Bobby.” Dean tried not to look at the hurt straining the lines of Sam’s face as he sipped the coffee Sam had brought him. “Some people’s luck just runs out sooner than others.”

_*“Usually ‘cause they push their luck further than they oughtta. Ain’t you ever heard the saying: don’t drive faster than your guardian angel can fly?”*_

Dean laughed out loud at that, surprising Sam and himself. It felt good, especially considering how apt the choice of words was in the moment. “Someday, Bobby, if we both live long enough, I’m gonna tell you exactly how appropriate that was. But seriously: you’ll take care of it for me?”

_*“You know I will.”*_ This time, the pause was laden with a tinge of sadness; Dean knew Bobby had seen far too much death in his lifetime, even for a hunter. _*“Just try not to get killed though, all right? Making sure that beauty stays purring for a few months is one thing; carrying out your last wishes because you’ve disappeared off the face of the planet for good is another.”*_

“You’re the best, Bobby.” Dean swallowed more coffee to get past the lump in his throat. Bobby had been almost like an irascible uncle since they’d met: the kind that lets the air out of everybody at a family reunion right before sneaking his latest batch of shine to the cousins and nephews that have managed to earn his respect. “I’ll tell you the whole story over a bottle of whiskey someday.”

_*“You’d better.”*_ The line went dead.

Dean understood; Bobby didn’t like goodbyes even over the phone. “Sorry about that, Sammy,” he apologized before Sam could speak. “Wanted to get that over with before you woke up, but Bobby’s kinda prickly if you can’t give him straight answers.”

Sam tossed Dean an apple and took a deep bite from one of his own, chewing thoughtfully before answering. “It’s okay, Dean. I’m pretty sure Jess has found the paperwork I left for her by now, too.” He laughed softly. “Who knows? She might even be a lawyer by the time the courts would let her declare me dead so she can use it.”

“Nobody’s gonna actually need to use it,” Dean insisted. When Sam shrugged, Dean sat up straighter and fixed him with a fierce expression. “I mean it, Sammy. The fact that we both have it out there and people know what to do with it, that’s… it’s like a good luck charm, right? Like reverse-Murphy’s Law: we’re prepared for it, so it won’t happen.” Sam shrugged again, taking another bite of the apple, his hazel eyes far away. “Sammy, come on. You’re the one that said we gotta do this. You’re the one that’s in love with the guy. Don’t tell me you’re getting all cold feet and fatalistic on me now just because it’s complicated.”

“It’s not that, Dean.” Sam sighed and leaned forward in his chair, careful to avoid his own coffee when he shifted his feet. “It’s just that there’s so much we don’t know about how we’re going to do this… so much that Castiel can’t even begin to tell us. We’ve got a plan for getting in, but what then? We find Gabriel somehow, pick Heaven’s locks before the angel keeping him prisoner realizes we’re there, and then escape back out through the same gate without raising an alarm?” He slumped back. “It’s not like they’ll let him go just because we show up and ask nicely.”

“Ain’t planning on being all that nice about it,” Dean replied.

“Dean-”

“No, Sam.” Dean pushed himself to his feet and moved to the other chair near the firepit. Turning it so that he and Sam were facing each other, Dean sat down and leaned forward until his face was mere inches from his brother’s. “Look: this ain’t a hunt. I know that. But there are times when a hunt is a hunt and then there’s times when it’s a rescue operation because you’ve found the trail in time to have half a prayer of saving somebody from getting their face chewed off. So we’re gonna do this the only way I know how: one step at a fuckin’ time, and no borrowin’ trouble before it shows its fangs.”

The expression on Sam’s face hovered at the edge of desperate hope, and Dean did the only thing he could think of. His left hand wrapped around the back of Sam’s neck while his right caught Sam’s, pulling it into a grip tight with promise. “You with me, Sammy?”

Sam’s left hand found Dean’s shoulder, and a smile broke across his mouth. His hazel eyes were wet, but his breath was steadier, his shoulders no longer drooping under the weight of impossibility. “Always.”

* * *

It was a short day. Both humans were feeling wrung out, especially Sam, and the remaining daylight hours were spent trading off eating and sleeping and avoiding any discussion of the looming rescue mission. There didn’t feel like much point in spinning their wheels in the name of strategizing without Castiel there to offer the basic intelligence they needed to work with.

And if Castiel had any commentary about the fact that they were both sleeping in the same bed when he returned after sundown, tangled around one another like puppies, he fondly kept it to himself.

Sam woke first, more used to sensing an angel’s arrival than his brother after having spent so long living with Gabriel. He nudged Dean as he shifted, then gave him a harder shove when Dean merely grunted and nestled deeper into the pillow. “Dude, get up. Cas is here.”

That brought Dean awake with a start, his expression bleary as he blinked into the shadows of the room. “Whassat? Sam?”

“Hello, Dean.” Castiel approached the bed as Sam left it in search of the bathroom, bending down to brush a soft, indulgent kiss across his charge’s open mouth. It was only by monumental effort that he resisted the way Dean’s arm wrapped up around his neck as the human drowsily returned the kiss, intent on pulling Castiel into the bed with him for an immediate progression of all touch-based activities to the advanced level. “I’m sorry,” Castiel murmured as Dean made a sound of frustration that the angel wasn’t closer. “There isn’t time for that. We have work to do.”

“Yeah… yeah, I know.” Dean sighed and let his arm slide back off Castiel’s neck. “It was worth a shot.”

It was as disconsolate a grumble as Castiel had ever heard from him, and earned Dean another quick, chaste kiss to the lips before he moved to let Dean get up.

By the time both Winchesters had gotten themselves sorted and were sitting around the table with Castiel again, Dean had forgiven the angel for waking him for something other than making out, though that was largely on the strength of the still-warm blackberry-peach pie that had appeared on the table while the humans hadn’t been looking. Dean was working his way through a second large slice as Sam sat back from his own empty plate, worry gnawing at his appetite. “So what’s the news, Cas? You find us an escape route if Operation: Wings of Freedom goes pear-shaped?”

Sam shot his brother an expression so annoyed that it almost made Dean choke on his pie even as Castiel’s head tipped in pure confusion. “Operation: Wings of Freedom?”

Dean shrugged. “Angel Rescue sounds like an air ambulance company… or maybe an animal shelter.”

“What have you got for us?” Sam asked, cutting off any follow-up questions Castiel might possibly ask.

Staying focused on Dean for a moment longer, eyes narrowed in utter confusion, Castiel finally shook himself back onto his original train of thought and faced Sam. “I’ve made arrangements for the appropriate provisions that you’ll need to climb the trail leading up to the monastery-”

“Whoa, whoa,” Dean interrupted. “Why can’t you just fly us there?”

“One: even my taking you to those mountains is going to be suspicious,” Castiel informed him. “Taking you directly to Caine’s stronghold would draw far too much scrutiny.”

“Why would it be so unbelievable?” Sam sat forward again, crossing his arms on the table in front of him. “Couldn't we have another reason for going there that you could give them?”

“There are thousands of ancient texts preserved in the monastery’s library,” Castiel explained. “More even than in the library hidden beneath the Sphinx in Egypt. For a hunter, such a trove of information about the Five Realms would be an immeasurable advantage against the underbeings you face. But Caine’s secrets guard themselves, and most of those that have sought out his library have never returned… even those that are more than human. For me to willingly place Dean in such a precarious situation would be a serious violation of Michael’s orders.”

The thought shivered down Sam’s spine; he could see the twin frisson of dreadful temptation on Dean’s face. “And the other reason you can’t just fly us there?”

Castiel paused; if possible, he was even more conflicted than he’d been the night before. “Caine is no longer truly human, and not just because of the curse bound into Father’s Mark. After he left Edom’s lands in the shadow of Eden, Father was moved to send four of the archangels to persuade Caine to repent for his actions; he rebuffed them all. In turn, they all placed their own curses upon him; Michael’s and Uriel’s were quite similar to the curses they would later weave over the Host.”

“So lemme guess,” Dean concluded, his tone heavy and sardonic. “The welcome mat ain’t exactly out for anybody with wings sprouting from their backs.”

“There are wards to prevent angels’ approach that were carved into the bedrock of the very mountains,” Castiel confirmed. “Any option I have to bypass them would either kill you both or be a declaration of war with Caine. I doubt that anything would make him willing to make an exception and allow me entry, no matter our purpose.”

“Which he’s not likely to be all that onboard with, considering he’s pissed off at feathery folk.” Dean let a breath sputter out past his lips and tossed his fork onto his empty plate with a frustrated clatter. “Fucking great.”

The new information felt like a blow to Sam’s ribcage. Without speaking, he stood up and walked to the door, opening it to gaze out across the deepening night. He heard Dean call out his name but ignored it for a moment, his thoughts tumbling over one another as he struggled to find some piece of this mess that made what they wanted to do still feel possible.

Convincing Caine. Talking their way through the gate. Finding Gabriel’s prison and unlocking his fetters. Escaping back to Earth. Somehow earning the right to be together, in spite of every obstacle and objection. All of it impossible. All because of Azazel. No matter which way he turned, Yellow Eyes was always there, blocking every path he tried to take to a life that wasn’t bound to the demon’s purpose.

And all in a moment, Sam was exhausted of trying to find another way around. “I don’t care.”

Both Castiel and Dean’s attentions shot to Sam. Sam could feel his brother’s confusion, Castiel’s uncertainty, as if they were living under his own skin. “Sammy?”

“We’re going,” Sam told his brother, not bothering to turn around. “Tonight. Right now. If we have to, we’ll search every inch of the place until we find the back door and sneak out. And if it comes down to it, I’ll use Yellow Eyes’ blood to break down the gate and anything else in our way.”

“You don’t know how to use those powers,” Castiel warned.

“Sammy, you gotta have your head on straight before-” Dean reasoned at the same time.

“No, Dean.” The chill calm that had taken Sam over would’ve been disturbing, if Sam’s head had been clearer. “One step at a time, you said. We’ve been trying to sort out strategy for two days and we just keep running into reasons why this is going to be impossible. Well, I don’t care about having a plan anymore. I want to free Gabriel. I want some questions answered. And then I want the freedom to love him if he’ll take me back and I want you to have the freedom to explore what you have with Cas. So we’re going. Tonight.” Sam turned to face them. “And if we have to fight our way through every angel there is and knock down the vaults of Heaven itself, then that’s what we’ll do.”

Castiel was speechless, eyes round with shocked recognition. Dean straightened, cold determination growing to match Sam’s. “You think we can, if it comes down to it?”

His eyes met Dean’s, and a tendril of a power Sam had only ever caught glimpses of before laced out from somewhere at his core. It tangled around the red string that had always bound them so inextricably, quicksilver blending with crimson, until he saw Dean sense it. Anchor it on instinct. Give it what it needed to blow wide open and surge in their veins like thunder on the horizon.

They had always been stronger together than they’d ever been apart.

“I think there’s no better time to find out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus ends Book Two! Please stay tuned next weekend for Book Three: In the House of Stone and Light! ^_^ ♥

**Author's Note:**

> Updates will be posted every Saturday until complete.


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